The Lady of Hresvelg
by KendrixTermina
Summary: In which I have a whole lot of feelings about that whole business with the credits song that I am hereby trying to process, and Edelgard pines for Byleth in every possible timeline.
1. Infidel

You are a wandering mercenary, and she is destined to become one of the most powerful people in your country.

* * *

_As I live out_

_Each peaceful day_

_Deep in my soul_

_Oh, I know I can't stay_

She catches your glance from the moment you first lay eyes on her, standing on the doorsteps of your dwelling with her pale lavender gaze filled with silent determination:

The Lady of Hresvelg.

She wears a businesslike, refined smile, but she observes you with a certain analytical disposition, and it occurs to you that she is perhaps thinking the same thing as you.

Later you will think about something Catherine once told you, about how people with the same Crest can sometimes subtly sense each other, but all the same, it seems perverse to taint the moment with such hindsight.

At the time, you believed it to have some deeper meaning, and whatever first made her catch your attention, you like to think that even if there was no meaning there to begin with, your thoughts an actions themselves would have created meaning, much like the deliberate connecting of random dots fills up the sky with constellations.

Or perhaps it was coincidence after all: You merely stated your allegiance as you did because this town that you used to frequent with your father was technically within the borders of the Empire, and this, over the course of a handful conversations, led you to end up in charge of her house, though you had no particular preference of your own.

Until this days, you and your father have traveled this land like solitary cats to whom all alleys and places are the same – wherever you were, you marched, you fought and you survived.

And while your father sometimes gave you these sad and worried glances, he would never be ungrateful for his chance to have you around as you are.

For the last years, you don't know how many, that has been enough, and at first, this unfamiliar setting that you have been thrust into is no different.

Little do you know that the destiny you had never thought to look for had caught you unaware.

But as always, you do what you are tasked with, and while few of it leaves impressions on your face, you do your best to do it well.

Not only to you instruct your charges to the best of your ability, you go out of your way to invest in their personal development, to hone their strengths, balance their weaknesses and discovering altogether new talents that they themselves would not believed themselves capable of.

All things considered, the imperial students turn out to be a rather quirky bunch, many of whom may not immediately appear to be suited to the harsh realities of war nor very enthusiastic about the tasks they are sent to carry out by the Church. You suppose that this should not be surprising – most of them are just here out of old family tradition or for political reasons, being descended from the handful of old families that had held the reins of the Adrestian Empire since forever. Even Dorothea, the only actual, honest-to-goodness commoner in the group, turned out to have fairly cynical motives for enrolling.

You have been told by your co-workers that relations between the Church and the Empire have been strained as of late, and that it would be considered a great success on your part if you should manage to close that rift through your influence on this young generation. The archbishop once tells you that it is precisely because of her great faith in you that you have been trusted with this unruly bunch of problem children – on her suggestion, you familiarize yourself more with the tenets of the faith, and end up discovering some hidden talents of your own.

Since you were never a believer and ever lived your life by the sword, with little thought of tomorrow, you never thought you would be any good at anything like faith magic, but the Archbishop, who was the one to instruct you, seems the least surprised of all, like she had always expected you to be skilled – if anything, it was your initial struggles that rather seemed to bewilder her.

But you're not one to look a gift horse in the mouth – after all healing magic is sure to come in handy when you are out there leading your students onto the field of battle.

And just as you had used to go from battlefield to battlefield, you spend untold hours instructing them both as a group and one on one, doling out tasks, finding out what motivates them, resolving their disputes, listening to their problems, building understanding of their life stories, even going on regular searches for their lost possessions and making sure they eat dinner.

They begin to respect and admire you, of course, but that's not the only thing that happens.

As you touch the trajectory of their lives, they in turn touch yours. Many times, you have them over for tea outside of class hours.

And it's not just the students – between the staff and the knights, this monastery is filled to the brim with unique personalities, each of them with their own intricate stories.

It's almost like having friends, or what you imagine having friends might feel like.

But at the same time you're aware that there are others who do not trust you.

Many times, you overhear the Archbishop's aide questioning your appointment. You caught the Riegan boy sneaking after you on at least four separate occasions, but then again, he seems curious about everyone whose deal is not immediately apparent. When confronted he just grins at you slyly with those forward green eyes that seem to bore into everything, and admits to his misdeeds with half a shrug.

You're not sure if you would count the imperial princess herself among the numbers of your great skeptics, but it is clear that that retainer of hers doesn't trust you one bit.

You're not sure how much you blame him – you'd probably suspect _yourself_ if you weren't you, how suspicious indeed that a complete outsider to the faith, not even a believer, and not many summers old should be appointed to your position, how puzzling, that you should have the archbishop's undivided favor though you've never seen her in your life.

Your father, in turn, doesn't trust the archbishop, and as for the woman herself, you don't know what to make of her.

Many here at the monastery sing the praises of her gentleness, but while you don't know about that, you think she seems… burdened, to you, even lonely maybe, not entirely happy in her much-treasured, restrictive ceremonial robes.

The way she speaks to you is almost that of a gentle mother or grandma, but while that seems like a passable approximation, it doesn't seem completely right, either.

You can't quite put your finger on it – sometimes when she looks at you, you have the sense that she's not looking at_ you_, exactly.

It's not like you have ever met your mother or grandma, so maybe you wouldn't know for certain.

…

When you asked the other house leaders to introduce themselves, they both deflected you – one of them deftly, the other, quite badly, with some manner of old wound quite transparent beyond his formal demeanor.

Your silver-haired lady, meanwhile, awaits you right past the door arch of the dining hall when you descend from the stairs leading to the archbishop's audience chamber, and leads off with a list of various unpleasant traits that others have ascribed to her, only to note that it won't be good to be bogged down by those misunderstandings.

Maybe she is trying to showcase that she values self-awareness. Then she looks you straight in the eyes, unflinching, and confronts you with what you cannot have missed yourself: She senses that there is something very similar about the two of you.

Clearly enough, she has taken an interest in you, though at the time, you do not believe it to go beyond her usual ambitious disposition that had become apparent even then.

Perhaps you agreed to lead her house simply because she seemed so insistent to ambush you along the way.

She's intrigued by you, but she appraises your every step with her pale analytic glance just to make sure that her initial sentiment is reasonably merited.

At least, you are united in trying to get her classmates to apply themselves; She proves to be fairly reasonable and appreciates your efforts, and yet she never protests when you assign her unpleasant 'lowly' tasks or critique her just like everyone else – not your typical spoiled princess at all.

You start to notice how she operates, the way she fairly weighs her classmates' strengths against their weaknesses, how she never one urges them toward conventional propriety, but rather tries to accommodate them and provide them with the preconditions they require to excel, her insistence in urging them never to give themselves over to the capricious winds of fate, to be not the quarry, but the straight arrow that flies through the air, even when telling them so might not necessarily benefit herself.

As it would appear, she 'collected' those she deemed to be extraordinary or fascinating, though she did not choose them by any established principles of conventional wisdom: From former street urchins like Dorothea to her highborn classmates, those with political connections and without, from those with exceeding natural power like that young magical prodigy from the Alliance class that she sometimes liked to have tea with, to her trusted right-hand man who possessed none such intrinsic gifts, for all that he carried himself with an uncommon determination that stood out amid the many obvious beginners in their class and soon distinguished him as one of the heavy hitters in their ranks – he wasn't too green to begin with, and you fear that your tutelage might well fashion him into a sheer machine of destruction before the year is done – He's tough as leather, the clearest, most natural candidate of dark mage that you've ever seen, and for all that he transparently distrusts you, it's not like he doesn't appreciate your input, or the virtues of others in general, though he certainly makes you earn his respect with his frequent tests to your ability as an instructor.

He and his lady harmonize very well in their preference for a dispassionate appraisal of both ideas and people, but the longer you know them, the more you see that though they agree by and large, there are some subtle distinctions in their attitudes.

Though both are driving forces in him, caution pulls at him stronger than curiosity does, and you begin to suspect that the princess' opposite disposition occasionally keeps him up at night, especially since he's implied to you in no uncertain terms that he believes you to be the designated crown jewel in the princess' 'collection'.

Now, he too is always on the lookout for useful allies to the imperial cause, but 'useful' and 'extraordinary' were… well, there was an enormous overlap between the two, but they were not exactly synonyms, and he is concerned that you might fall just outside that intersection, even if he no longer holds it to be your own fault, and you suppose that this could be seen as a kind of progress, but by and large he remains somewhat impenetrable, as does his lady.

But it's not as if you haven't ever been described the same way, or like you cannot understand them.

On first glance, you suppose one might have mistaken her for the stubborn, forceful type or even described her as unyielding because she would state and pursue her aims without flinching, but the more time passes and the more you see of her, the more the veil falls away and you come to realize that she questions herself almost more than anyone else, and though there isn't much that she would seem to revere or respect (at least not without question), if there could be anything that she believed above all else, it would be her stance that individuals should strive to pursue the life they want, regardless of what the conventional wisdom of the world around you would have you do.

Between the lines, sprinkled in between your various conversations, she makes it clear to you that she is not much one for tradition. Her sharp mind looks past the well-trodden paths as if they were the walls of a glass house, cutting away all unnecessary things in ways that may have quite frightened those entrenched in the established ways, for whom the mere questions would shake the foundations of the world -

That, she could respect even in individuals whose chosen lives were rather different on her own, and it was perhaps this that connected her to people such as Dorothea or Linhardt, different as their backgrounds or dispositions might have been.

A person like you, who was never inducted into the old-fashioned ways to begin with, fascinates her to no end.

But at the same time, those very connections only seemed to go that far.

They were her friends, but where they tell-all, know-everything-about-each-other trust-them-with-your-life sort friends?

Probably not. Hubert maybe, but even there you weren't too sure.

They only ever seemed to speak about business – and you certainly appreciate that she's making her fellow Black Eagles go to class, acting as the leader that she's supposed to emerge as once her education here is concluded, but it almost seems like business and purpose is all she ever has on her mind.

She almost seems closer to your position when you're discussing the strategy for the next mission, or what the two of you are to do about their classmates' struggles.

Many of her fellow students seem to think so, anyways.

She's high-minded and fair and looks to foster comradely and togetherness, but when she speaks of it the others seem surprised, like they could never quite imagine her as belonging in the same category or level as themselves – Like there was something untouchable about her, sublime even, something that distinguished her from everyone around her, that elevated her further than anyone could reach.

Even her own retainer, who should have known her better than anyone since she was a snotty little child and stuck with her through the most banal of everyday situations spoke of her prowess with rapturous awe, and when he talked about her, his eyes held a glint like he knew some things that only he knows.

Others, by contrast, were sometimes even a bit scared of her; Bernadetta had once told you that she sometimes doubted if the princess was even human. The little archer tended to be quite impressionable and easily frightened in social interactions, and surely her position as the imperial princess would require her to keep her responsibilities in mind at all times without the need for any more incredible explanations.

You faintly recall Prince Dimitri expressing his displeasure with what he believed to be her callous words or cold treatment once or twice, and you're surprised that his repressed, polite demeanor could not quite hold back his strong feelings of offense.

You yourself have never perceived her that way.

Maybe she never struck you as that odd because you're considered something of an oddball yourself – your father never made you feel bad about that, nor did you ever think much of it when you heard others talking, but it's a fact you're aware of.

She's not an untouchable opponent to you when you cross blades with her on the training grounds, but people had said the most ridiculous things about your strength since you came here.

Crests, Relics, Saints.. none of that ever meant anything to you.

Insofar as you knew, you were never impossible or untouchable, you were simply you.

So why wouldn't she be the same?

That's how your father raised you, but maybe that was precisely why he seemed more apprehensive the closer you got to the secret heart of Garreg Mach…

Even so, you are you and she is she -

Perhaps you simply understood what she's talking about, furthermore, you've seen what she's like when she comes to you to ask for your advice, or even thanks you for your guidance, with all the genuine sincerity of one who has just been granted a pitcher of water after a harrowing march through the desert-

"When I fight by your side, " she tells you once on a wide open field, "It's almost as if I can accomplish anything.", and she twirls around with an uncommon levity that you have not seen on her many times. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but, it really feels like I could sprout wings and take to the skies!"

You were, at that time, teaching her to use magic in case she ever needed a viable long-range attack in an emergency, but of course, she had meant quite a bit more than that.

But even so, you can't escape the conclusion that there is a wall in her heart.

You go on to spend much time with her, for you find much cause to celebrate as your class exceeds all expectations.

You learn her likes and dislikes, you sit with her when she retires with a sigh after long strenuous days, and always, she seems so obviously put-together, ever the sort well-bred lady who would use elegant gloves and high-class porcelain and well-worn feather quills, reserved yet confident, fond of a spot of tea, a good book and a sweet, peaceful sunset in the gardens, and the subdued, but genuine enjoyment of the most ordinary things -

That's the version of her that shows up when you invite her to your balcony, but somewhere there's a portal and a silver door and you suspect that you've never glimpsed what lies beyond it.

It's hidden under the long sleeves and opaque tights she never fails to wear, concealed in the nights where you are on march with the rest of the class, and you notice her turning in uneasy dreams as you keep watch for the night, a hard, absolute tone when she speaks sometimes, and unspecific, vague replies when the subject of the future is concerned, it's how she never explicitly denies that she might choose to fight the others, it's those rare days where she seems a little paler than usual and Hubert, without fail, would seem to give off the impression that he is stewing with some long-held grudge, when he wasn't fretting about his lady more than usual.

Once, he would have worn a thin, reptilian smirk while he tells you that there is a lot that you don't know about his lady; Now, you scarcely see him outside of mandatory classes because he is reportedly occupied with urgent business, and when you do see him, his bony features invariably bear a severe scowl.

…

And yet you sit endlessly on the grounds in the nectarine light of the late afternoon hours as she tells you your opinions on the latest books she had read, her thoughts garnished with small pastries and bergamot tea.

Due to your sheltered upbringing, you might not have realized that much of what she says could have been considered an unorthodox opinion if she had not made sure to tell you so – and with every word, she's sizing you up, studying every remote twitch of your face, gauging your reactions -

You think you've been probed with one or the other trial balloon question, but as a trial for what, you cannot say. At the time, you don't think she's probing anything but your intellect, for no other reason than her own curiosity, and you never grow weary of observing her thoughts in progress, how the little gears in her head turn, how she follows up your every word with further questions.

When you find her readings of historical events or fictional stories to be overly jaded, or too intent of inverting all interpretation for inversion's sake, you don't at all question what twist of fate might have made her that way- you see simply an active mind questioning everything, and perhaps at times going over board, in what is a natural step in building discernment and wisdom to eventually arrive at more solidified opinions.

Had she crossed your path as a new mercenary recruit working under you, you would have made sure to keep her close in anticipation of what she might become.

You feel at times like you are in the presence of a person of great destiny, like what it might be like to stay in the tent of a legendary conqueror the likes of which reshaped the looks of the map. You marvel and wonder what Adrestia might become once she finally ascends the throne. Your powers of perception are not so weak that you wouldn't spot how she always seems to be holding something back – but she comes the closest to letting loose when she comes at you on the training grounds, yearning for a challenge that only you can seem to provide to her satisfaction.

When she throws herself at you with abandon, you don't wonder what it is that she is hoping to find in the crossing of your blades; The obligations of a ruler seem demanding enough to be an obvious explanation.

...

But it's like you're catching glimpses of something whose overall shape you are unable to grasp.

One day, at the crack of daybreak, you would find her wandering the courtyard, taking in deep breaths of outdoors air, looking at the reddening skies with apprehension.

Another time, while you are discussing how the actions of your mysterious enemies might be related, she brings up the thesis that all the abnormal occurrences so far might be connected by a single thread.

At first, you assume that this is precisely the conclusion she wants you to make – you've long since noticed that she appreciates it when you catch on quickly.

But when you agree with the proposition, she doesn't, in fact, commend you on your astute sleuthing.

She looks defeated.

Apparently, she thought instead that this might be the result of multiple actors with overlapping motives, but even so, you don't quite understand the extent of her reaction.

"_When all of this is over, will you still think of me as you do now? Would you still be by guide?"_

"_Are you leading the life you envisioned for yourself?"_

Then you are swallowed by the never-ending darkness, and though she has faith in your return, the palpable relief melts off her face the moment she beholds you – _enlightened one, avatar, august star._

It's like she has been slapped awake from some foolish dream she didn't even know she was having.

Her response is awkward, stilted, when you try to explain what just happened as best as you can, but before you can tell her anything definite, the world fades before your eyes.

The last thing you see is the heartbreak in her lavender eyes.

"_If the world were to divide and go to war, who would you-"_

…

You have lost your father, and perhaps that's what makes Rhea's inexplicable attentions so enticing.

You're almost sure she implied that she was somehow related to your mother – Which means that Flayn and Seteth must be your family, too, then, if they were relatives of Rhea's. When you look at yourself as you appear now, it seems much easier to believe, and the idea of having a family again, well, it's rather enticing.

The archbishop is happier than you've ever seen her, positively giddy with an almost feverish euphoria to her voice, as if she just cannot wait for whatever she expects to happen next.

You suppose that it might be something very important to the faith she had dedicated her life to.

And after all, you did speak with some impossibly powerful being as it would seem, though she never seemed to you like the fire and brimstone smiter of sinners in whose name you have cut down so many by now -

Still, it's not like you really know about such things.

And many in the monastery, including many of the students, are ecstatic about this, joyous to be receiving word from the one they so worship and adore, grateful even to be living in such a blessed time.

Perhaps this really _is_ your destiny.

You have been called a Demon and spent most of your days shedding blood, by the eternal flames, you had never even been a believer or as much as heard the goddess' name...

Yet here you are garbed in the robes of a prophet, adorned with a wide collar much like Rhea's and laden with ancient golden regalia whose meanings you barely grasp, but which mean the world to those around you – You, humble child of Jeralt Eisner, have somehow attained that which has been called 'enlightenment' or 'the touch of the holy spirit.'

Paradoxically though, it's the students from your own house that seem to be the least moved – Linhardt looks at it largely as a matter of curiosity, Bernadetta seems somewhat uncertain, and Dorothea… you might almost say she's worried about you.

But you're not sure what she means any longer, you barely register her as you step through these now-familiar halls in a raptured daze.

You're probably just adjusting, but even so, you walk right past the silent silver-haired girl, so absorbed in this whole new world you just discovered and all those things you never knew about yourself that you didn't hear her tiny plea for help -

And then it's too late.

Too late, it does eventually strike you that something must be bothering her.

Something about her is different when she returns from her brief visit home.

She smiles her usual dignified smile and speaks in her usual confident voice, but it's like some part of her is a thousand miles away, a decision already made, some ineffable thread of fate already crossed.

Though she is still right before you, it's like she has gone somewhere where you can't ever follow -

What you don't know, of course, is that she is thinking the same about you.

…

And now you know.

At first it boggles the mind; You will not, _cannot_ believe it.

This seems to come out of nowhere – it's just not possible. How is it possible?

You're tempted to refuse to accept what all your senses tell you, but you're smarter than that.

When you think it through, you realize that you've never actually seen the princess and the Flame Emperor in the same place, at the same time.

You recall all the times she had expressed sympathetic sentiments for the various revolts and heretics you had been sent to put down, brazen rebellion barely even veiled by her dignified style of speech; You remember all the times you've seen her and Hubert running about on unspecified errands and Caspar's comments about seeing her talk to his father;

And last but not least you realize that you never once saw her in the cathedral.

You think of Ferdinand speculating whether one of the house leaders might have known that there were mercenaries stationed nearby, and a particular conversation comes to mind, a chat you had with one of the monks rather soon after your arrival, about how the church's age old reputations would have been quite tarnished if the word spread that the three precious heirs had been in danger – that is the very thing that would have come to pass if the incident hadn't been overshadowed by the tales of your heroics and subsequent appointment. At least you hope that the aim was to make the church look bad, and not outright assassination. You hope so, but you don't know it to be true.

The Edelgard you know might strike without reservation where she must, but she would always at least give the enemy the chance to surrender – but did you know her at all?

What you do know is how often you had seen the then-disguised Kronya swarming around Edelgard, and how some of the other girls had remarked on it, and at the time, had gone so far as to speculate if Edelgard was also a _thing_, as if such a revelation would not come as a surprise, since it was _Edelgard_ – Edelgard of the faintest cold smile, Edelgard of the calculating dead-eyed stare, Edelgard of the boundless ungodly strength.

You thought she was like you once, but that was before you were beginning to understand yourself, to find your place here with the closest thing to a family that you have left anymore -

Now, you're not so sure.

But you seem to remember other things as well – Her eyes lighting up from the simplest things like sherbet sorbets and red carnations, her sadness when her classmates reacted with surprise to the idea of her championing companionable togetherness and her sincere wish to change it, and last but not least, her genuine revulsion at the black deeds in Remire.

You remember how she sought you out after your father's death, urging you to move forward – There wasn't even the slightest shred of pretension, no empty meaningless phrases to make you feel better, no condescending attempts at telling you what you ought to be feeling, no sugarcoated denial of the cold hard truth within your heart. She conceded outright that no amount of sympathy could replace your loss, that no measure of empathy could truly allow another to know what you were feeling; She wouldn't presume to understand, or waste your time with meaningless displays that could never have replaced what you had lost – but at the same time, she was determined that she would not allow you to give up on yourself, and vowed that she would stand with you when the time to take action should arrive…

You thought that maybe you knew what she meant, and how she thought, where others might not have, but as it would turn out, you have understood absolutely nothing.

At least her concern over Flayn seems like it must certainly have been a lie – She has played you for a fool, you, and her classmates.

But there is so much you don't know – couldn't there have been some sort of explanation?

You don't know what to think, but there is no time – Rhea is almost most certainly asking you to choose, and though you hold in your hands a legendary weapon of godly power, your resolve very much falters.

("...")

But it's the same as if you had outright turned your blade on her. Whatever pretense of wanting to go with her you might have mounted now, she would never have believed it – she was ever so good at knowing whether or not you were lying, like the impregnable mask of your face was never that opaque to her.

But you couldn't see through her at all – with a wink of her arm, she beckons Hubert to her side, there's a sizzle of magic behind you but before you can turn around, he is at Edelgard's side, looking down at you and his former classmates with disdain.

You recall how diligently he had been practicing his teleportation magic as of late, how meticulously he'd honed his technique – without a doubt, all for this moment, all that so that he could now return to the side of his mistress, and warp them both out of the chamber at her signal.

Could you truly have been so direly mistaken about her?

Was everything you thought to have seen just a perfect illusion, as much of your own making as it was of hers?

You don't know. You don't know _anything,_ you never did.

At best you know that you're confused, but you can't afford to be.

Your students – your _remaining_ students – are all frightened, seething with various shades of terror and wrath, especially your own charges who all hail from Imperial lands – Half of them are afraid for their friends and family, terrified that they might be caught up in the upheavals that are clearly shaking up the imperial capital, others dread the prospect of having to fight their own kin.

The Adrestian Empire is still their homeland – you get the feeling that some of them only stayed at the monastery because of their trust in _you_, and that's overwhelming. It's more responsibility than you've ever shouldered in your life, and your father isn't here to tell you what to do.

Everyone's panicking. They don't know what to do, or what might happen to them.

Dimitri's more enraged than you've ever seen him and darkly mumbles about revenge – you hardly recognize him anymore. Marianne scarcely understands the world anymore, utterly bewildered as to why anyone would possibly raise their weapon against the faith that has been her only support in her dreary life. Flayn speaks as if she had seen war before, though that cannot possibly be so. Lorenz says he's prepared to stand and fight, but you can hear how his resolve falters when he thinks of his territory's proximity to imperial lands and his foolish old father whose blood he doesn't want spilled. He does his best to hide it but you can tell that he's trembling in his boots. Petra, likewise, is concerned for what her choice to stand against the empire might mean for her land of birth.

And Ferdinand… worries you.

All his life, he had been preparing to take over his father's lands, had steeled and bettered himself to one day man his post. His frequent talk about the long, proud and illustrious history of his family had been a common source of irritation for yourself and his classmates, but now that he's been stripped of everything, he looks before you like a lost, beaten puppy dog, his eyes wide, blank and utterly broken.

With his father jailed, his pride broken, and his future snatched away in an instant, he has no idea what to even do with himself.

In the months you have spent together you have known him to be more than just a braggart; He was always eager, ever resourceful, genuinely upstanding and last but not least, optimistic and dauntless to a fault – but right now, even he can't seem to find a single positive thing about his current predicament, nor the faintest shred of a solution.

He's shaken to his core – And yet he knows that he cannot abide Edelgard's actions, that he must stand up to her though it may cost him dearly.

In a way you are proud – He might not have her unparalleled power, but he is very much a leader. He stood up to her down in the catacombs, in the heat of the moment, out of his sheer sense of virtue, but now that the reality of it is sinking into his young sheltered heart, he doesn't know how to go on.

And he is not alone.

Many of the students ask you why this is happening, and all you can do is to tell them that you don't know. Why go against the church? Why start a bloody war? Why antagonize the nobles whose support should have been the foundation of her power?

The more you try to calm them, the more you hear of the rumor mill that is quickly beginning to come to a boil, the scathing conclusions that are being drawn all around the monastery.

Leonie brings up the possibility that Edelgard may have meant to kill your father all along. You don't know for a fact that she didn't.

Dedue can only explain the Prince's anger by surmising that she may have had a hand in the assassination of his parents and the ensuing slaughter that devastated the taciturn vassal's own beloved homeland. With knowing eyes, Lysithea tells you to expect the very worst from any future encounters with the imperial army. Ingrid lists all the atrocious things that have happened around the monastery, all that you now know the 'Flame Emperor' to have had their hand in, from Jeralt's death, to these horrific experiments, to Flayn's kidnapping – She must have planned it all along, she must have been plotting it even as she sat in their midst, participating in classes and passing them in the dining hall, all with that composed, untouchable face of hers – and brave as she in, Ingrid shudders at the thought.

The only ones who have answers for you are Rhea and Seteth, and you don't like the sound of them one bit: She's deposed her own father, the one you thought she loved as you did yours. As for the families of her classmates, her supposed friends, many of them have been disgraced.

Hubert's father was outright killed, and you don't know which option is more disturbing, that the emperor would not spare any mercy even for her loyal vassal, or that his twisted devotion to her went so far that he would even kill his own blood.

She has undeniably been plotting with what you believed to be your mutual enemies. She wants to conquer all of Fodlan, they tell you. Tear down all existing social order so that she might rebuild it according to her own twisted ideas and selfish desires once everything else had been razed to the ground, and not even the faith was to be left standing – She had turned her blades against all that was holy.

Perhaps she means to conquer the world. Maybe she even means to set herself up as some kind of false deity – for how little you know, that may very well be true.

But whatever her aims may be, she is most certainly coming here, and she's bringing her army.

The situation is looking dire.

The Archbishop, of course, tells you to listen for the voice of the goddess, and to be honest you can't make sense of half of what she says, whatever that is about your memories or her being your proxy, but you understand enough to grasp that the responsibility has been left on your shoulders.

But today of all days, when you needed a voice from the heavens like never before in your life, you can hear absolutely nothing.

….

And still she looks the same as she did just mere days ago, when nothing could have been more natural than for you to pass her in the halls and for both of your faces to light up in an instant, no matter your reputations for impassiveness.

She is still the same woman who has lived in your proximity, the one you have worked with, convened with.

She doesn't do you the mercy of cackling maniacally or going on about how she would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids. Apart from the red-feathered armor that she wears, nothing about how she looks or sounds has changed.

If you had seen her looking so downcast just a few days ago, you would have done anything in your power to make it better – now, you feel something clenching in your center as you get ready to cut her down.

Her silver hair sways in the wind adorned by her usual pair of lavender bows, her demeanor is as perfectly reasonable and composed as you have always known it to be, apart from the tinge of wistfulness that accompanies her every word:

"_I wish you were someone whose heart could be swayed by my words and deeds. If that were so, I would have done anything to make you my ally..."_

Sway your heart? Make you her ally? Why in the world does she think you would follow her?

You don't know, just like you don't know anything else, other than that you stand now with your blade in your hands between the encroaching army and most of your students and colleagues.

You don't get a single answer before you find yourself tumbling down a ravine.

The last thing you see is the dark priest who held you back as you tried to rescue your father, the one who killed him as surely as Kronya had, if not more so – no sooner than you had spotted him in the ranks of the imperial army, the dark radiance of his spell appears to have sealed your fate as well, and you spiral downward into the darkness, struck down, as it seems, through the callous betrayal of your own cherished disciple.


	2. Zealot

You are the Avatar of the goddess Sothis, and she is the second coming of the Fell King of Liberation.

* * *

_Don't ever take_

_Back your kind hand_

_Lest precious love_

_Slip away like time's sand_

You have passed out of time, to realms unknown.

Back on the world you left behind, the days and nights continue to chase each other, but nothing is changed or added to your memory, dear and cherished as it might still be.

Your story seems told and concluded, your part in it as fixed and immovable as the contributions of the ancient heroes who forged the foundations that you stood upon in your day, giants so vast you could mistake their shoulders for the hills as you walked on them, barely aware of how they got there.

Through the whims of gravity your broken remains found their way to cold water, there they remained, but the hungry elements hesitate to take back the dust from which you came, as if something higher was ordering the worms and vines to stay away.

Instead, something calls to you, more from within that from without, more a plea than an order and above all, a lament for the ocean of carnage that only you can end.

In the cold dark water, you stir.

Your soaked legs take you down familiar roads whose age-old cobblestones are now choked with weeds.

….

Against all odds you see her standing there among these ruins of her own making, like a single red flower in the darkness.

She actually came…

Just for that instant, a flutter of feelings of takes possession of you.

She's beautiful – you catch sight of her delicate profile in the dim light, locked in resignation as she wonders what she's doing here.

But any levity is gone from her voice, any pretense of being a normalcy evaporated, and this, perhaps, was what was always lurking in wait behind either of her guises:

In her gleaming regalia and ornate, crimson armor, with her hair tied back into a strict, elaborate updo, it is easier to conceive of her as the horned devil that you were always fated to oppose.

Even so, during the year you had spent together, you came to know her too well for you not to note the slight changes in her face as she steels herself for the inevitable, the stings of pain as she hardens her heart and forces herself to move forward.

Her first reaction is almost relief, though you should be nothing but her hated enemy by now.

She sounds angry when she questions where you've been, there's heartbreak in her voice as she describes your long absence, and for a moment, its like the ruins have pieced themselves back together and left you to discuss the matter at hand and concoct a further course of action, like you had done so many times, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like you were doing just the other day -

For you, it was just the other day.

But not for her: the eyes that once again appraise you have gone cold long ago, and her body, in its taut, readied stance, had had lost all softness that she ever bared to you.

She stands at attention, vigilant as one would be in the presence of an enemy, and you recognize her expression for what it often was back when you first met:

Resolute and resigned at once, the look of a lone fighter.

She has only one question left for you, and it is one that you can't answer.

She knows what it means of course; She always could tell better than anyone whether you were lying or telling the truth – and it is this special person with whom you seem doomed to cross blades now.

It is a futile thing all along because whether you kill each other or not, you will most certainly not leave together, and it is here that the passage of time hits you rather bluntly. Her strikes bring the full weight of five years bearing down on you. The gap between your experience has evaporated.

As time has not touched you, she is now technically a couple of years older than you; You are evenly matched, parallel, like mirror images that are doomed to never touch.

Yet you still know her well enough to discern that she's not serious – She hasn't even drawn her axe, and neither of you has the guts to go for the others neck, not here, not now.

Your sword doesn't cut her flesh, but the new, bitter certainty of your long-since diverged paths is lodged in her chest – and you understand it least of all. Not long ago, your place was firmly at her side.

And she would ask herself a long time why she had drawn back her weapon, just as you would come to wonder why you didn't strike her down right then and there when she turned her back on you.

It's a small miracle that you only half-seriously ascribe to the holy ground on which you stand; But both of you know better than to expect for such an absurd anomaly to manifest itself again.

It's just that for a split-second, you did not see your hated enemy, but the blasted ruin of a girl that you once knew, long past, like the golden days that now lie buried beneath the rubble, just as you did for those very many years.

In a way, it was the best year of your life, and also the worst.

It touched you, like nothing in this world had ever touched you before, and before you knew it, you seemed to have become a living, breathing part of a vivid tale that now seems as far away as the age-old yarns in storybooks.

Like the weathered walls around you, you have become a remnant of a bygone age, left by yourself in the wilderness.

The grass has grown over you.

But time wears down some things quicker than others, some of them so slowly that they come quite close to the comforting illusion that is all permanence ever is.

Like the silent eye in this raging storm of days, a pair of familiar faces appears before you, and comfort blooms in your chest like never once before.

It pales before the long-lost arms of your father, of course, but when you see Flayn and Seteth, looking no different than when last you saw them, it almost feels like coming home.

When you tell them where you've been, they're less surprised that such a thing would even be possible than they are that you would slumber in so cold, inhospitable a place.

They might not explain you right away, but nonetheless, they seem to think you quite explicable, for the first time in your life, and at a time where all seems foreign, there is something very comforting about that.

Even so, decisions are to be made

You don't want to fight her, but Seteth reminds you sternly of the war that still rages on outside these walls.

The Kingdom of Faerghus has gone up in Flames; The Leicester Alliance descended into chaos.

All across this land, people more innocent than you and here are forced to fight their own, so how could you alone sit idle?

Sweet little Flayn is disgusted by the fighting, unable to comprehend the mind of one who would willingly unleash such a hell on their home, and Seteth, who not too long was seeking refuge, and had all his hands full just with protecting himself and his own, is now called to rise to the challenge of leadership in his sister's stead, like his mother before him, as it was once his duty of old.

His family, he tells you, has been protecting this land for a long, long time, and this 'family business' now includes you.

As for your enemies, none of you understand them. You can conceive of their goals only in abstract terms and Flayn, who, as you will learn lost her mother to a great war, can't see any reason that might possibly justify one. To her and Seteth your opponent's motivation are just one big garble of vagueness, words words words, which by their very worthlessness prove the low character o anyone who would put them over flesh and blood human beings. The people couldn't possibly want this, Flayn argues, and as for Seteth, he concludes that some lofty rhetoric that they could never understand couldn't possibly be good for them. Though he does not go to such extreme accusations as Rhea, he cannot paint the future she desires any other color than pitch black.

He has always been a cautious man, but a coward he is not. If he must, he will step up: He will answer the pleas of the faithful, he will guide the flock, and he needs you to help him do it.

It doesn't occur to you at the time that whatever Edelgard is or isn't doing, you're not exactly innocent of your own accusation – you're not explaining yourselves either, you're deciding from on high what should be done like it's a literal god-given duty.

You don't think that just because you don't understand Edelgard, that doesn't mean that nobody will – But had someone brought that thought to you right then, you would have dismissed it as exceedingly cynical, you were, after all, doing the best to end the suffering before him with the means at his disposal, and who could fault a man for trying to protect his sister and daughter from those who clearly and vocally wish them harm?

He doesn't know of the misdeeds alleged in her speeches and manifestos, he knows, or thinks that he knows his dear sister, who is after all one of the last few brethren left so him, so the stories must be fabrications; To his knowledge, he cannot explain them any other way.

At least, you cannot argue that Seteth is anything a good, reasonable man, and according to what all of you know at this moment, ending the chaos of this war seems like a good and reasonable thing.

Didn't Sothis tell you to end the strife? Maybe that really is why you're here, why she has given you back your life after you gambled it away by putting your faith in your treacherous pupil – felled by your disciple, and then raised again. How very messianic.

And the rest of your fellowship is not so far behind, true believers, not in the faith, but, as Dorothea once put it, in you.

Seteth finds it fitting – however far Adrestia may have fallen, the wayward children with you carry the blood of saints. Perhaps they were send to you to see to their homeland's glorious restoration to the path of righteousness.

They're all so eager to call it providence. Your coming here, your chance meeting with Seteth and Flayn, as well as the subsequent arrival of most of your former students…

But you're not really sure what to think. It would seem conceited to smile and nod to a claim such as that. For most of your life, you would have noncommittally shrugged at claims such as these.

But with every passing day, you find it easier and easier to call forth the holy light from your fingers.

…

You have little but a pile of ruins and the clothes on your backs.

You must acquire funds and you must acquire men.

Seteth sends for messengers to call back the knights and takes steps to request aid from local lords.

You make plans to go to town to try and find the former monks, and even think of finding and employing former brigands and calling in some of your father's old contacts.

Your little flock of followers is worn and weather-beaten, but they all wish to lend their aid in any way they can.

In many ways you are proud of them. Once they all struggled under the binds of the lives that others had picked out for them without giving them a say in it as well as the weights of the many misunderstandings that had been flung their way because of their shortcomings or even just the very uniqueness that ought to have been regarded as their greatest strength.

Now, cast out from their homeland as they were, they had nonetheless succeeded in carving their own paths.

Ferdinand's hair is long and wild; gone is the sheltered boy who never knew hardship. You learn that though disgraced, he and his house did all in their power to resist the emperor's vicegrip; as a result, he was forced to flee, and only the most loyal of his soldiers and retainers had come with him, but even so, he was willing to led them to your cause.

Petra can't promise you the support of her homeland yet, their situation is precarious after all, but she will do what she can, and nothing in this world would stop her from lending you her axe. Resplendent in her islander garb, she truly looks like the proud, stalwart queen she was always meant to be.

The war has left its marks on Dorothea, but she little orphans she has taken in eagerly volunteer for the chores needed for the monastery's basic upkeep. Caspar has traveled the land as a warrior and made a name for himself, bringing with him his experience and renown. He's a great deal taller, too – you actually have to look up to him now.

Linhardt simply swiped some of his parent's fancy goods, which gives you pause – He hadn't really left the empire until just a few weeks ago. You suspect that he came here chiefly to see you and his other friends, but if he continues to march with you, he will be forced into many of the fights he so abhors… But for you, and for the others, he came, and Bernadetta, for all her easily startled nerves, had done the same and marched here all on her own with little more than her clothes and equipment – but you couldn't possibly be disappointed that she didn't bring anything; If anything you're impressed that she made it here with so few supplies, though you do seem to recall that she had more than a passing interest in Botany. She used to like handicrafts too, and the clothes she wears now seem to reflect that, she's got sweet little accessories, decorative details and hair decorations – Though not particularly attention-grabbing, her getup is cute and distinctive and allows her personality to shine through instead of hiding it away.

Their reunion, however, only serves to underline Edelgard's glaring absence from their midst, the absence of her words from where she would have spoken had she been granted the chance to be here.

Do any of them know just how narrowly they have missed her?

Does she know that her former classmates were so close behind?

In the end, the only one who didn't come was Hubert.

That's so very like him.

At least Edelgard's absence was felt, but no one seems to have missed or mentioned him.

He was implacable, unpersonable, thoroughly elusive like a dark smoke refusing to be held within your fingers, hard to please because he simply did not wish to be pleased, and definitely not here to make friends. He had little patience, consideration or sympathy for anyone, so most people might not have found it hard to imagine that no one should miss such a dour, trenchant taskmaster.

You wonder what he looks like now.

Has Edelgard handsomely rewarded him for bringing her his father's head? Has he been showered in gold, or given power and leeway beyond his wildest dreams? How have the years been treating him?

You don't really hope to find out, because as soon as you did, he would surely breathe his last.

Perhaps, he would be slain by his own classmates; Perhaps you would cut him down so that he wouldn't slay them – you don't particularly expect him to hesitate.

…

You often meet in the ruins below, labyrinthine below the monastery walls, to discuss your plans and confer on your latest strategies.

You're surprised how natural it seems, how easily a vagabond like you has somehow become part of this timeless order, these last, scattered heirs to a vast, ancient history.

You've never truly belonged to any place or community, nor did you think about it much it, maybe because your father was always by your side – but he is gone now, so when you have nowhere to turn, you find yourself turning to Seteth.

On the surface, he seems like your father's total opposite – one cautions and proper, the other rugged and irreverent. But both of them had left behind everything many times and wandered the land as a transient, all to protect their only child – of course shortly before you lost him, your father was beginning to think that there may not have been any reason to flee in the first place.

You wonder what it might have been like to grow up at the monastery, with Seteth as a sort of uncle and Flayn as something like your cousin.

You wonder how many more places like this there are – how many more relics left behind by the people of Zanado… your people, in effect.

…

There's a letter from Claude.

It seems that in your long absence, he had grown to be quite the capable leader.

How did that happen?

Sure, he always seemed both likable and insightful when you talked to him, but at the same time, he always seemed easygoing at best and at worst, downright shifty.

Now, he's the one to meet you with a plan, an army, and an offer that you can't refuse.

You don't like playing straight into anyone's hand but then again you don't seriously think he would doublecross you, and Seteth agrees.

You wonder what he looks like now.

…

**A****she.** Lorenz -

You rejected Edelgard's path because you knew that it would be a bloody one, that it would put you at odds with many of those whom you had wanted to protect.

But it seems that you might not be able to avoid that either way.

Ashe was conflicted and apologetic as he strung his bow, torn between his duty to his adoptive father and the voice of his heart, his once messy hair combed into a neat, aristocratic-looking style that doesn't suit him. For the last few years, he had probably tried his hardest to fulfill his obligations as a dutiful son and heir, putting whatever hopes and dreams he had for himself on the backburner. You remember that he has a brother and sister – and it seems like you might have to take their last remaining family.

Were he not your opponent, you would have critiqued him, told him that he mustn't let this situation get to him – It is plain to to you that he's losing his nerve, that he can barely bring himself to fight you. He was pretty much drafted into this, such a gentle boy, trying so hard to do the right thing though he cannot for the love of the goddess say what it is.

And then there's Lorenz. At the academy, he struck you as rather immature and frivolous, not spoiled, per se, and not wholly without a sense of obligations but all in all he seemed like an arrogant twat and you weren't too surprised to learn that he'd defected to the empire.

One look at him, and you'd know everything there is to know about him.

But everything you know is wrong:

There he stands, bravely facing you down to protect his greedy hack of a father who isn't worth half as much as his life. He always wanted to go down in history, no doubt, with grand last words, but all he can manage to mumble out as he bleeds out next to the carcass of his horse is some slurred plea to make sure that his funeral arrangements would be fancy enough.

Bereft of poise or dignity, stained with tears and snot, his frightened face burns itself into your memory, the terrified expression right before you cut him down.

…

They're ALL gone.

Just like that. You had barely begun to process the news that Dimitri had been hiding out in Fraldarius territory – of course he went to Rodrigue! - when you're told that they are all dead. Dimitri, Claude… All of their housemates, and everyone who followed them… more than half of all the people that you lived with on a daily basis back at the monastery...

Perhaps some of them stayed home and did not enlist for the war – but would you stake anything on that hope? You haven't seen Claude's or Dimitri's bodies but deep down you know that you will never see them again.

You had chosen that first, you should do no harm, but you find that even without your action or intervention you can do nothing to prevent the harm that is already being done by others.

You can't fault Seteth for refusing to go along with Gilbert's proposition – your army is small so you cannot afford to take risks. As a general you know this.

But what if you had gone along with the Kingdom and Alliance's joint armies? Or if you had appeared before Seteth alongside Judith or Gilbert, at the head of one of the other territories' larger forces? Would he have added his numbers to your own?

Could the efforts of all three forces working together have resulted in a decisive rout? If you had been there with Dimitri and Claude, could you have saved them?

…

At this time, you see no problem with Seteth deciding what is do be done regarding Fodlan's future; As a guardian of the land, left in charge as such by his mother, he thinks it's best for the remains of the Kingdom and Alliance to rebuild under your banner. He's trying to do the right thing in any way he can, and if that involves using the Church's infrastructure for the relief efforts, well, you can't see the people of Leicester or Faerghus complaining about too much disaster relief.

...

But there is something strange that Seteth says, as you make your way inwards into empire territory, little more than an observation he makes before you were once again surprised by misfortune – you don't get the time to really process it, for a long time, it remains behind in your mind as an unconnected oddity that won't start to make sense as part of a bigger picture for a long, long time.

Edelgard's soldiers – they fought to the last, as if they had far more to fight for than just the cruel orders of a tyrant. The zeal of her followers seems to lesser than that of yours, which makes you ask some things about yourself. Are you seen by others like she is? Untouchable? Sublime?

Is that what others see when they follow you, fervently hoping for the better world they expect yu to bring?

But you're just trying to do your best, to bring back peace, to end the fighting, to continue your newfound family's long watch over Fodlan.

What she wants is still nebulous in your mind, other than that she wants the power to remake the world as she sees fit.

For just a moment, you almost doubted – but you're set straight right away when that terrible weapon is unleashed on Fort Merceus.

You don't know what devilry you just witnessed, or by what whim of the Death Knight's you escape with your life, but whoever would rain down that kind of destruction can only be your enemies.

...

With every day that you spent training her, every lesson you taught her, every tiny correction that you ever made to her technique…

Were you just giving her the tools to wreak all this destruction?

…

Flayn, if you would believe it, was actually born in Enbarr, a long, long time ago, when it was still a holy city and not the decadent, wretched hive of godless heathenry that it is today.

She would likely have been put into whatever class it was to be headed, but going by the normal rules, she would have been destined to be placed with the Eagles.

She, too, had her fair share of memories scattered all over the ancient city that was now the enemy stronghold – before the Opera House, where Ferdinand had spent many fond, inspiring hours, and were Dorothea had made a name for herself, there was the old Church where Flayns' parents had first met; she had known the venerable palaces that Caspar and Linhardt had idly played in while their fathers attended to business back when their stone facades were polished and new, when most of the spires that Petra or Bernadetta would have seen when looking out the balconies and windows from the confinement of their rooms were yet to pierce the skies.

Maybe it's good that you choose the Adrestian students, and that you took them with you – They know the terrain, and they do not love the thought of assaulting their onetime home. Your current plans for invading Enbarr look like a precise, surgical strike; had you come here at the head of a different army, your generals might not have been so considerate.

You're not certain that you would concur with Seteth that it must have been fate or divine intervention, but as he had pointed out the one time he showed you the illustrations that Bernadetta had drawn up for his latest fables, many of them carried traces of saintly blood – So perhaps it was it was only fitting, perhaps their little band of sheltered misfits, disgraced and cast out from their homelands, were indeed chosen to lead the wayward land of their birth back to it's holy origins.

The goddess, supposedly, worked in mysterious ways, and was it not to her credit that she should work through the frightened and the destitute?

Was it not proved that she loved all her children even the weak, the poor or those wandering displaced from their homes, even the ones that were much too soft for this endless bitter fight?

Holy blood had never stopped any of their fathers, nor even Edelgard herself, descended from the great prophet herself – but wasn't it always the brightest morning star that should turn fallen angel, that the paragon should always rebel?

It all sounds neat and good, but though you still cannot bring yourself to believe, even as you draw more and more followers and worshipers to your trail.

You have all the ingredients, but you just can't think of yourself as a prophet any more than your former students can see themselves as continuing the legacy of saints -

At least you're in the same boat

And almost certainly, you must saved them all from a needless death at Gronder Field, where their classmates' bones might still lie scattered.

At least, you understand that, as surely as battle has been your bread and butter.

…

By the time you find yourselves before the palace doors, you've already talked yourselves right into it.

You've psyched yourselves up, you all agree that she has to go, that it's only right and just and the only way for justice to be served -

Saying such things not of some distant inimical specter, but someone you once ate and drank with everyday, someone who fought at your side.

Wasn't all this just as true for her, and did she not cause all this destruction?

You will thwart her reign of terror and put an end to her twisted judgment, turn aside this vague dark future that surely only she could want.

At the edges of perception, there's Linhardt and Dorothea expressing some token glimmers of reluctance to cut down a former friend, but their words don't gather much momentum.

For once, Seteth expresses some honest sympathy for your conflicted feelings, but that's probably because he longer believes you do be in any danger of genuine hesitation.

You've all gone too far to turn back now, and you're not sure if Ferdinand is trying to convince you or himself, but he's right either way.

He surprised you all when he broke formation and rushed towards the enemy commander, not, as he might have once upon a time, to recklessly challenge him and score the kill for himself, but to talk, like the statesman and negotiator he was bred to be, though all his hopes had been dashed long ago.

The dark mage leading the enemy forces was once their classmate – your student – but that scarcely matters to him. He greets Ferdinand with naught but mockery; Even so, the redhead is insistent:

"Hubert. She must leave."

You perceived Seteth's sharp inhale from all the way atop his wyvern – You couldn't possibly have heard the sound that far off, but the parting of his lips does not escape your honed senses.

Did Ferdinand just offer to let his former classmates make a run for it?

You never find out.

Seteth needn't have worried – it would come to blows regardless.

The Minister's face splits open with a grin – hte offer must be tempting to him – if there were any chance that his Empress would listen to it and flee, at least some part of him would surely love to take her and escape, and be it only to spare her the grim consequence of defeat – but would he admire her the same way, if she were to choose her measly life at a time like this?

"Do you think you can make her?"

Hubert knows he cannot – as for Ferdinand, you end up having to step in to save him from a face full of dark magic. You hope that the redhead will forgive you, and that time will heal the bruises of his ego.

But your calculation works out – The moment Hubert spots your green hair in the fray, you have his undivided attention, and any traces of his smirk are gone in a moment.

It's not your first time fighting one of your former students, and since he was in your class, he should have been the hardest to face – but unlike Ashe or Lorenz, he isn't reluctant or even apologetic.

His countenance is trenchant and severe;

There is nothing in his face but icy contempt.

He's making it downright easy; You're beginning to understand why Edelgard would make sure to keep him around, this vile man who couldn't even scrounge up the pretense of sympathy at the death of your father. When you've given up on understanding, the absence of pity is perhaps the greatest comfort you can have.

Yet, his voice drips with acerbic loathing, and bitter, noxious regrets:

"I should have disposed of you a long time ago... "

In an instant, his fingertips blaze with saturnine magics.

"I will rectify that failure here!"

You barely blinked when you cut him down.

"We must place our faith in her Majesty… Her Victory is everything..."

You can't imagine what about that victory could really merit such faith, so you all think him a lackey. Only later will you find that his faith wasn't quite that absolute, his reason, which Edelgard had praised when she introduced you, would prove stronger than his loyalty.

He had a will of his own after all, a will that compels him to ensure that the whereabouts of your shadowy enemies do not die with him and to see how dangerous they are though his mistress had thrown in her lot with them.

Or perhaps you should have expected this pack of rats to betray even their mysterious benefactors, the devils to whom they'd sold themselves for power.

...

But it doesn't make sense.

None of it does.

None of it fits what you know to be true, what you remember from days past, or what you see right in front of you.

She said she would keep fighting you even if you tore off all her limbs, but they're still attached to her body when she realizes that she's beaten.

She was off center the whole time, you know her well enough to notice that -

Some of your soldiers will go back to their homes and, for the rest of their lives, feel chills running down their spines whenever they thing of this battle, their souls forever haunted by visions of her formidable elegance, but as her only equal in power and her former instructor, it is patently obvious to you that you are not facing her at full strength – nay, she barely resembled herself.

When you dueled her back at the monastery, you were evenly matched, and she hadn't even been using her axe.

Now, she kneels gasping and panting in front of you, just barely remaining upright by propping herself up on on her sword – she can no longer even lift her preferred weapon.

Halfway through your fight, her robes were soaked through with blood in places where you never sliced her – She must have reopened the wounds she sustained at Gronder.

You feel like you're picking her off like a vulture, and yet, this measly act will surely be hailed throughout the ages as a heroic feat only you would have been capable of.

Actually, you're not sure that you could have beaten her at her peak, at least, not without another warrior of uncommon prowess at your side.

But when you look at her now, broken and defeated, you can't bring yourself to see a monster with inhuman power, a wicked heart, a false deity, or even a bloodthirsty tyrant -

Only your beloved student as you knew her from sunnier days, your friend, the focal point of these inexplicable feelings of kinship and affinity – and she's bloody, burnt-out and utterly broken.

Whatever she'd meant to accomplish here, she had dedicated her whole life to it, given it all to some abstract ideal that no one wanted and nobody understood; Piece by piece, she had cast away everything she was until there was nothing left but this cold, regal shell, all hopes, dreams and every shred of feeling, and every thought until there was nothing left but complete, single-minded focus.

She used to cherish every moment they'd spent drinking tea in the gardens, you think you saw her smile from the bottom of her heart when she would converse with her friends in the dining hall -

Now, cut loose from the goddess and discarded by the devils to whom she is no longer of use, she has nothing to hope for from either heaven nor hell – she expects no mercy, least of all from you.

And the thought strikes you suddenly that for all her rebellion and fierce rejection of this world and the karmic cycles of its fate, there was always a little repressed part of her that was both deeply fatalistic and utterly resigned, as if she had seen the future and railed against it with everything she had, denying it her surrender to the bitter end, though she could never hope to move the unshakable convictions of that part of her that is still trapped wherever her restless dreams used to take her.

She knows that she cannot win, so she won't even attempt to resist the inevitable.

"Your path lies across my grave..." she says, as if nothing in this world could change this anymore.

Crumpled in a heap, she is the very image of defeat, like she had never expected anything else, never thought it possible since the day of your transformation, knowing that you must be enemies, and vexed that it must be so.

"If I must fall, let it be by your hand..."

Before you is the loneliest girl in the world, heartbroken and abandoned by everyone.

The closest thing she had left to an ally lies splattered before the palace gates.

There is no one she can rely on, no one she can trust, and nobody who understands her.

No one ever did, and no one ever will.

"I wanted… to walk with you..."

Lest the burning feeling rising in your chest turn out to be regret, you strike her down in mid-sentence.

…

"I don't want to kill Edelgard...", is as much as you were willing to admit back when you were push open the palace doors with Seteth by your side. "Don't you think that maybe, somehow, we could walk the same path as her?" He didn't even get offended or scandalized – instead, he regarded you with a fatherly sort of sympathy, the sort you could imagine him giving Flayn if she were speaking of some tragic impossibility, like wishing to see her dead mother.

"She was one of your students. I understand your desire for a path to peace. But she will never bend to our will. You understand that, do you not? We have no choice but to kill her."

You did understand, but against all good sense and rationality, against all that is good and right -

You wanted to walk with her, too.

It must seem so ridiculous to Seteth: You're the hero chosen by the goddess, and she was the harbinger of destruction who worked with the ancestral enemies of your kind. What fellowship could you possibly have with the likes of her? But to the part of you that is not a divine savior, the you that was a mercenary, a bloodied fighter and unflappable leader just as she was, it always felt so natural…

...

If she had been laid to rest in the tomb of her ancestors, some sort of coroner or mortician would have had to strip and wash her for embalming, and if that's what had happened, it might have shed some light on the unholy secrets she held concealed under her robes.

Instead, you hear that her body was dragged out to the streets and burned right then and there.

You're told that Dedue left a long streak of red across the marble floors of the palace.

So much did he loathe the one who had cut down his liege that he pulled her remains along the splintered stone and the pockmarked gravel outside, not deigning to grasp more than the heavy boot around one of her ankles.

Then, where everyone could see, though no survivors of the losing army would have dared to show themselves, he piled on enough kindling fit for a witch-burning.

You might almost think that he didn't trust her to stay dead – why, oh why, do you wonder;

Even Edelgard von Hresvelg is just a mortal, a complex mass of flesh once grown on some mother's bloodstream, that was now bereft of life.

Of course, given the choice, the tall Duscurian man might have thrown her into that pyre while still living, as it was reportedly done with Prince Dimitri's beloved stepmother.

He carried out his errand with all the brutality that his fallen master would have requested, but beneath the steely mask of duty behind which he had retreated to escape the mercilessness of grief and many years of mistreatment, you recall that there was always a gentle young man who wanted little more than to live in peace with his friends – all of them are gone now.

You slew Ashe yourself.

There's nowhere for Dedue to go, so no one knows where he went after that but the last ones to see him all describe the emptied, broken look in his eyes, and wonder fruitlessly if he perhaps went back to the cinders of his homeland.

You even noticed when he discreetly receded into the shadows, you remember making a sharp mental note to seek him out and speak to him as soon as you were able, but you were all worried ragged, anxious to release Rhea from her dungeon -

But in the end, do as you might, you couldn't save Rhea.

If you had chosen a different path, could you at least have saved Dedue?

You're beginning to wish you had.

It's not just that Rhea died, no matter what you did – it's how.

When she first told you about her involvement with the circumstances surrounding your birth, you were inclined to forgive her – it was obvious that she acted out of desperation, and in the end, it seemed like your father's suspicions had indeed been unwarranted, as your mother had actually perished of natural causes. Sure, she had meddled with your life, but if it weren't for her intervention, you would not have had a life at all. And whatever her origins, your mother's life seemed to have been normal enough, if she was able to meet your father like she did.

But then… but then…

It seems that there was quite a lot going on that even Seteth didn't know about.

You've been hailed as the great hero of the church, but it's like you know nothing about it.

You were heartbroken enough just from the realization that you would not be able to save Rhea and were left with no recourse but to put her out of her misery, but to learn that she had apparently made much of the church's upper echelons drink her blood, rendered them connected to her power, so that they were now transformed into monsters so much like the demonic beasts you had been fighting up until now?

Certainly, she could not have known that she would lose control, but could she have done this at any time? Would this same fate have befallen your father, if he were still alive?

You might have lived an unusual and, in some ways, sheltered life, but you've been a soldier. You're not naive.

You see how this looks terribly like a failsafe, a complete absence of trust in her adoring supporters. You see now how any rebels could only have come from the outlying branches like the Western Church, but never the Central Church, and you can't deny that it seems like something she would do – though she surely meant to protect the flock and carry out the will of her beloved mother, you remember thinking that she sometimes seemed… overzealous.

But you could still explain this somehow.

It's another matter when you break her fall in the cathedral, the bittersweet ache inside you when she looked at you with relief, only for that feeling to get skewered right through when she speaks, not to you, but right through you, to the stone lodged in your chest, as if the rest of you is not even there.

Or rather, she never saw you to begin with – When she cared for you after your transformation? When she got captured protecting you from the imperial army? That sheer joy when you were the one who freed her from captivity? When she used her very body to shield you from the Agarthan projectiles?

None of that was for you.

Not once, not ever – and it never will be, because she's dead. You can no longer make her see, you can no longer clear away any misunderstanding, because she's gone.

If you wanted to win her heart, or become a family with her, you would never get the chance.

With her last breath, she calls for her mother, but you're not anybody's mother-

But that's what everyone wants you to be.

'The Arbiter of every soul and mother of all life'

With Rhea gone, everyone is all the more eager to wrap you in ornaments and fancy clothes and elevate you on a pedestal.

You still know next to nothing about this religion – but that's not how a religion works.

You are holy, because you're the one touched by their goddess.

So you do what is required of you, as you did in your days as a mercenary, or as a professor at the academy.

One could hardly believe that you were either; Soon tales tell of your mild, and nurturing benevolence, and perhaps the less awestruck stories will paint you as a legendary conqueror, as a logical continuation of your extraordinary life; On the battlefields of Fodlan, you learned to be a leader and in your time at the academy, you learned to guide and captivate the hearts of men like a good shepherd leading on the flock, a wandering flame stumbling into destiny.

Everyone was expecting you to, so you stepped forward to guide the work of rebuilding, and insofar as it is in your power, you work to bring forth the sort of world that Flayn had dreamed of, one where war is as good as forgotten.

When she and Seteth say that you remind them of Sothis they mean it not like Rhea did, but like a relative comparing a youngling to some deceased grandparent, nor do your followers mean anything other than to elevate you into the halls of fame and legend, but it feels like someone else's life and you're not fully sure whose.

You wonder if that's how Edelgard used to feel, surrounded by awestruck followers, but very few friends.

The thought that you could have anything in common seems absurd now.

But when you're done tending to the altar and warming the royal throne to oversee the realm that now centers on Garreg Mach, as you retire to the rooms that used to be Rhea's, you sometimes remember what it was like to wander the landscape with your father.

At the time, these days hardly seemed to touch you as they passed by without stirring any great feelings in your silent heart, but looking back, they seem like the only part of your life that was wholly your own– but you also understand that the encounter in Remire was probably inevitable, that you were always coming here.

It's been easier to look through time, the longer you'd had to get used to the full extent of your full power.

If anything keeps you anchored at all, it would be the bonds you had formed with your former students, who now constitute much of your royal court.

So here's the final tally:

The war had been ended, and the Agarthan threat that had been tormenting Fodlan since time immemorial had been uprooted once and for all.

If it was truly the flow of time or the will of the goddess that brought you here, you had definitely accomplished what you were sent here to do.

But at what price?

Once you went through your days untouched, but now, this world had surely left its marks on you -

And it was in ruins.

All the nations that had existed in Fodlan just a few years ago, that had been exiting for centuries and centuries, had now passed into history: The Adrestian Empire, the Kingdom of Faerghus, the Leicester Alliance… Each of them is no more.

Their armies, their lords, their illustrious leaders, all of them annihilated each other at Gronder Field.

You whole class… almost everyone you knew, along with their families and retainers… slaughtered on that killing field.

You merely picked up the pieces left by that disaster and rebuilt the continent from the ashes once its charred remains had cooled.

And those three bright young leaders who once turned up at your doorstep in Remire?

Not a single one remains.

You didn't see Claude's or Dimitri's bodies, but you never heard of them again, and you know better than to be foolish.

You think of Claude's letter, lamenting what could have been if you had joined forces;

You think of Dimitri, lost, confused, begging for your guidance, never to be seen again.

You think of Edelgard, inextricably drawn to you though you were her hated enemy.

You remember their younger selves at your doorstep, bright minds, with bright eyes and bright futures.

You wish you could have saved even a single one of them.

…

It's Ferdinand who gave you the idea, or at least planted its seed that time he started musing about what might have become of him if you had chosen a different path – perhaps, if you had picked a different house to teach, or possibly even sided with the empire.

He needn't have worried, really, a proactive, optimistic guy like him? Would always find a way to be fine no matter what the tides of time might fling his way.

Despite all the twists and turns, he still ended up as the statesman he had prepared himself to be, your prime minister rather than Edelgard's.

But there might be some merit to what he said.

Not for him, but for you.

With an unprompted look of determination, you gaze around your chambers.

"Sothis! You owe me one!"

You're not sure if you even really saw him – that memory, or that dream, that feverish phantom of Dimitri's desperate face – but you decide that this time, you won't waste your time on some thankless cause…

This time, you will be there to show him the way.


	3. Sinner

You are the hero who has risen to the challenge of restoring order, and she is the ruthless aggressor who unleashed the chaos of war across your homeland.

* * *

_Yet still I hide,_

_Behind this mask that I have become_

_My blackened heart,_

_Scorched by flames, a force I can't run from_

* * *

Now from the beginning, Sothis had told you that there was a limit to this power – you found this out the hard way when you tried in vain to save your father, and you do not expect that you will be able to save him _now._

But what _is_ different this time is that you'd had a little bit more time to test the limits of your power, to get used to it and develop a feel for what you can and cannot do.

Almost everything is possible, but only a few of those probabilities are _probable._

The flow of time has its own set of forces acting upon it, much like a river is forced down the path of least resistance by the steady pull of gravity.

Your many battles, then, have become countless experiments, greetings and invitations to let you get to know that force: If you send one of your followers to attempt the same thing twice, the results do not usually vary by much – the soldier might score a lucky hit, or miss with one of their attacks, but by and large the outcomes were so similar that you practically learned to predict them over time.

But if you sent a different soldier with different skills to engage that same enemy?

Then the result might indeed be quite different.

That is precisely what you are trying to do now, only on a much greater scale.

Try as you might, a river cannot flow uphill, and if you try to leave its flow in the rapids, the currents will drag you back ird n pull you forwawithout mercy.

But what rivers can do and have done since time immemorial is to branch out into deltas and rivulets on their journey to the seas.

So what you are looking for, if you want to have any hope of changing the outcome, is a natural branching point, a change not so wild as to throw the stream of events into unpredictable chaos, but still significant enough that, given time, it could not possibly lead you down to the exact same result.

This leaves you with at least one very obvious option: Much like you might choose a different soldier to take down a particular bandit, you must now choose a different king to confront the brewing troubles within Fodlan.

You must choose to teach a different house, and with it, a different ruler to make your disciple. Now from the outset, you might have said that Edelgard looked like the most promising option, strong and put-together where her fellow house leaders were either worrying devious or far too soft and naive to face the realities of the world.

But you had gone with her before, and your time with her proved to be a dead end.

Whichever criteria you once chose by, they had clearly led you to choose wrong.

Once, you might have appraised the young leaders with a purely strategical outlook, but as you stand before Rhea once again and are prompted to choose your house, you listen to a different voice, perhaps one that you had hitherto neglected:

Having seen them all die, you're inclined to follow the compassion you never knew you had before you arrived here for the very first time.

Claude is shrewd, Edelgard is strong, but Dimitri… Dimitri looks he he might need your guidance most of all.

You remember the ghostly image that never was, the one you maybe never met, lost, confused and thoroughly broken, crying for help he no longer knew how to accept.

You don't know to what extent you'll even be able to prevent the horrors that befell him, and you already know that there is probably a lot more to him than his sincere, chivalrous demeanor suggests, but insofar as you remember, he was always a good kid, beloved by his many friends, and always going out of his way to help people – when your father died, he immediately swore that he'd help you in any way he could, as surely as if your suffering had been his own.

You're not sure if that _moves_ you but you feel like it _should, _and if nothing else, that leads you to take a chance on him.

Thus, you choose the Blue Lion House this time around, knowing that this would likely lead you down a path where you end up fighting for the holy kingdom of Faerghus in the coming war

Right away, you realize that you're dealing with a completely different animal here, and not just because of the stylized golden felines on the banners:

For one thing, they manage to get through the introduction in an orderly fashion without scampering off in all directions like headless chickens.

For all that they fall over themselves to welcome you as one of their own, there's a certain stilted politeness that none of them can really help – Dimitri can't get them to drop the honorifics either.

Even so, the Prince is unmistakably one of the bunch:

His friends tease him with embarrassing anecdotes and chine him with the occasional playful shoves in a way that Edelgard's never did. By and large you find yourself with a much more close-knit group: Many of them know each other from childhood, and the ones that don't fit in easily with the rest, as many of them share the same hobbies.

Before long you know everything about heraldic tales, the finer culinary arts and the stories behind everybody's weapon collections.

It's a wholly different atmosphere, like a tight-knit family almost. The Eagles were much more individualistic and independent-minded. They'd generally tell each other exactly what they think if they were mad, (even if Bernadetta would immediately follow it up with an anxious flurry of escalating apologies) and then they'd go their own ways, but these kids, they're different… which isn't to say that all was fine and dandy – there is a lot more emotional charge here, for better or for worse. The air is often markedly thick – Ingrid doesn't talk to Dedue, Felix doesn't talk to Dimitri, and then there's all that mess with Anette's and Felix' fathers, and the closest Dimitri comes to dealing with it is to ignore all the hostility in hopes that it will eventually go away.

To respond to Felix' aggression would be to acknowledge that they are not friends anymore…

and the Prince wants to badly to be friends, to be accepted for all his scars and imperfections – So he puts out goodness into the world in the timid little hope that some of it might one way find its way back to him.

One day he will tell you that he couldn't stand you once – you suppose that you must have been too much like Edelgard for his tastes.

But you will only find out when that is long past and he stands before you ready to swear a blood oath to avenge your father.

Whatever his personal feelings, the Prince made a point of befriending you from the get-go, and saw it as a matter of honor that you be integrated into the group; He wants you to _like_ his classmates and implores you to appreciate their strengths and overlook their weaknesses – He wants you included at all the victory feasts, and dutifully speaks to you after every mission or training session – but there's something stilted, reluctant about how he stands there, an uncertainty trembling just below the pristine surface.

He always turns vague when the subject turns throughout the future, and with all the hopes that are pinned on his eventual rule of what you soon come to know an a brittle, unstable kingdom, that is worrying enough.

It was one thing to encounter the consequences of the widespread dissatisfaction, to have Edelgard explain to you about the rebellions and disunity amongst the church and the fruitless obsession with crests – it's another to stand next to Sylvain as he is forced to cut down his brother, or to observe Ashe wailing over the corpse of his adoptive father.

You stand there as a veteran, drenched in the rain, but though Dimitri has surely drawn blood before – you heard one story from Felix, and there's another version of it that he tells you himself – it never leaves him cold.

Nothing ever does.

He is Edelgard's opposite in every possible way, a beautiful disaster, so filled with bursting feeling that he can hardly contain it. Where she was an impenetrable wall, he's a wide open book, transparent as glass, and just as fragile, and as sharp and piercing where he breaks, and he seems doomed to do that a lot.

You no longer think that 'naive', 'soft' or 'impressionable' are the words for it, he's none of those things, indeed he know the ugliness of this world very well – it stares out at him each day from his very reflection.

And yet he weeps over the casualties he cannot avoid – he nearly faints with joy when you find Flayn, he burns with rage when you make your way to Solon and breaks down in shame before you right after the fact.

You've seen all this before, but when you're standing next to him, living through things that affect him and his friends, you cannot be unfazed.

He's most certainly compelling – a beautiful disaster, a tragedy walking just waited to unravel.

This world should not be a place where someone as sincere and genuine as him is doomed to failure, but you can't help but think that he is. You can't say in good conscience that he has the markings of a great leader, but you understand why others would hang their hopes around his necks, you don't see how anyone wouldn't believe him when he says he hopes to make a better world, not when he takes on their causes and burdens and their feelings to the point that he almost forgets to feel and live his own.

He's what is commonly known as a 'hopeless case': He breaks everything he touches, he's no good at anything other than fighting, and irresistibly drawn to all that is pitifully terrible and doomed – a patron of orphans and outcasts, a lover of terrible puns, terrible cooking, and everything else that anyone might take pity on. He sees the inequality in the realm, but he can't quite bring himself to condemn the lords or traditions, musing to himself that surely they must have their place and reason too, and that maybe just maybe, everyone should just get along.

It's not sophisticated, that hope of his, nothing like Claude's vast dreams or Edelgard's well-honed ambition, a sickly bird fallen out of its nest, still wet and crumpled in its broken eggshell -

But that's precisely why you want to keep him sheltered in your hands, not because you think you can, but because he deserves it.

In their own way, he and his sad little band of friends stir more feelings in you that you had ever really known.

His sincerity soothes you after a lifetime wasted hanging onto Rhea's double-edged affections.

You can no longer just pass through this world like all places are alike, untouched by memory of them, nor can you roll down the path of your destiny like the boulder Sothis had once likened you to – If you tried to be again swept up in whatever Rhea and the others kept telling you about what your great divine destiny had to be, something would hold you back, a pull towards the tale of this young man and his devastated homeland, and the people that dwelt therein, all the legends you'd never been told and the world you had never been part of – You could almost imagine yourself as a character in one of those stories, not the untouchable messiah that you were in your last life, but the gentle guardian angel guiding the heroic shining paladin on his path – Dimitri certainly comes to look at you like a godsend, and you find yourself smiling more and more each day…

And yet, you cannot forget about the forces that are already plotting your destruction, so very, very near.

During the mock battles, you notice that Ferdinand has taken your old spot in the formations, ever to the right, just as Hubert stands at his lady's left. Despite his best efforts, it does not go well – For the Black Eagles, that is.

You still see Edelgard in the hallways.

When you see her and Hubert whispering together around the monastery, you can't help but think that they must be scheming something. They are the hands of the ever-ticking clocks that surely bids your happy days to be over.

You don't want to see her, she reminds you too much of her bloody remains impaled upon your sword – but it's like she's going out of your way to be in your sight.

She inevitably shows up to your seminars, she takes as many of your courses as she can fit into her schedule though she has homeroom and mission briefings with Manuela this time around, and even outside of classes you'd think she was ever so subtly going out of her way to speak to you.

The thought that your classes are rather popular in general is far from your mind: Is she still trying to sway you to her side? To enlist you for the empire and her pointless bloody conquest, like she did back in Remire, and will likely do again when you return there?

Like you could do that, knowing what was right around the corner.

Did she know everything, the whole time, putting on that reasonable, composed face day and night that now seems like nothing short of cold mockery, feigning concern when she might have known exactly who instigated the rebellions, or where poor Flayn was being kept that long-long month?

The more you relive these days you once breezed through, the more and more you notice.

Was it at her behest that some of her classmates were transmogrified in the old chapel?

She was plotting to take the sword of the creator for herself, wasn't she?

She must have been, if was was behind the mages that came for it…

But even if the crest stone wasn't already within your chest, how could she have possibly hoped to wield it if that crest of yours was supposed to have been lost to history?

Hers was a crest of Seiros, right?

But knowing as you did now, that Rhea was the goddesses' own daughter…

Perhaps she had figured that this was close enough for her nefarious purposes.

What bitter irony, that the descendant of the Saint's own shining paragon should be the one to rebel:

Star of dawn, so full of pride,

fallen angel, devil in plain sight:

There she stands, more surprised about your presence than the bandits because she knew everything about _those._

There she is, whispering with the badly-disguised _creature_ that is due to kill your father.

Badly disguised herself, now that you look back at her in hindsight, even as she stands right before you. Could you really have been so blind? Was it like Claude had said that last time, that you were all distracted? That, like Seteth said, you had all missed the blackness of her heart?

She was barely even hiding it, standing there musing about how she would have done all in her power to pursue things to the bitter end if she had been in Lonato's place. How overblown, if not suspicious she finds it that anyone would be concerned about Rhea's would be assassination – and there's Hubert who finds the prospect positively hilarious, always slinkering around her like a shadow, his snide, mocking voice – and Edelgard joins in right with him, choose to keep him around and makes it a private joke with him how little they really care about the 'impudence' of the sacrileges they have orchestrated themselves.

How did you ever not see this?

She slips into some old habit halfway through one of the battles, maybe she forget where she was and threatened to drain all your blood for real, like she would have done with her porcelain mask on.

She's positively blasé about bringing up a possible future where she and Dimitri would fight much to the boy's disquiet, indeed after the fact, she challenged both her fellow house leaders in the light of day, dismissing it as a joke afterwards, though she must have known it to be a grim and bitter certainty.

What's _the matter_ with her?

Dimitri, you find, has been wondering that since he arrived, much like you have – last time, he must have lingered in the corners when it was you and not Manuela escorting Edelgard to her missions. He hesitates as he does with all things that concern the life he no longer sees as wholly his own but there's more to it, something hard to place that stops him in his tracks short of saying anything definite, like there is some mute yet definite instinct telling him to back off, to stay away in clear recognition that she is something to be avoided, a mark almost as plain as her unnatural silver hair.

But Dimitri, being as he is, heartbreakingly kind and also heartbreakingly self-destructive, cannot wholly stays away and extent some vague downcast semblance of friendliness that brushes off her steely focus.

First, you think that what you're picking up is a simple puppy crush, and a rather ironic one at that, given how you already know that the two young heirs are fated to be enemies, but once you start piecing together the full story, you start doubting everything that you still thought was genuine about the connection you once had with the princess in another life -

In your heart, you can't bring yourself to deny it, but it doesn't fit together with the truth that you now see before you…

How, in that long, long year you had spent together, had she never once told you that she had a brother?! A brother who, one might add, had been studying at this very academy all along, this whole damn time.

Even now, she seemed to rebuff all his kindness; Each hesitant, heart-wringing attempt to act as a brother shot down with a challenge – actually, you're still not sure if that's truly how he sees her, they wouldn't have grown up together, and he didn't find out until much later, so it is quite possible that he regarded her with a much different feeling at the time, one that might me intensified now that neither of them were little children anymore.

It was probably a very complex soup of emotions – He must be longing for those distant days full of light, when he could come home to his parents' embrace after long blissful afternoons spent with his most special friends. Perhaps he just wished to hear his mother's voice again, finding her shadow in the features of this girl whom he hardly knew, whom he could barely stand, and who most certainly did not have his best interests at heart.

He wanted so badly to be her friend again, and cut himself once again on the icy spikes of her heart.

But Dimitri and you were in the same boat, really.

Like you, he was trying to reconcile his most treasured memories with the reality before him.

How could she not tell you about her own brother?

She had never introduced you, never even _mentioned_ the young Prince as anything other than a rival. She'd told you that story about her parents meeting at the goddess tower, never once mentioning that they split up, or that they were anything other than each other's one true loves – but maybe that's how she'd _wanted_ to remember it.

Sure, she had mentioned once or twice that she had stayed in the kingdom at one point, even told you about how she once had a crush on some young noble that she met there, like a normal girl would have – and indeed, the person that Dimitri describes in his stories seems perfectly ordinary, vulnerable, touchable, a bit bossy perhaps but most certainly human – At some point at least, the girl you both remember must have been real.

You wonder what has become of her.

Replaced perhaps, just like Monica and Tomas?

The truth might be even worse.

You think Dimitri suspects it when he picks up that dagger, maybe some part of him knew it all along since he had pieced together his uncles' involvement, but he doesn't want to accept it.

You fear to think what it would do to him if he were to know the truth.

But now that you have seen it with your own eyes, you cannot deny that she is working with the ones that killed your father.

'Their greatest creation' they called her…

Brought into the world through some bloody means that somehow involved the slaughter in Duscur.

Just what in the world is she?

What is she?

What is she?

What _IS_ she?

It still doesn't add up.

Under the circumstances, you cannot blame Dimitri for getting swept up in his feelings, but with him in such a state, at least one of you has to stay level-headed.

Despite yourself, you recall the words of a silver-haired girl on an occasion that now never happened, telling you that people couldn't be reduced to just allies or enemies.

Yes, she clearly said that her ominous allies had their filthy hands in that pointless slaughter that killed Dimitri's parents and led to that horrible misdirected backlash against people like Catherine, Ashe's brother and Dedue's whole people – but in the same breath that she brought it up, she had rebuked them for it.

She would have been what, twelve? There's no way that she could have been involved directly, even for someone of _her_ skill.

What would the heir to the Adrestian empire even have been doing in Fhirdiad? The story might make sense if she were merely from some lesser-ranked branch of the Hresvelg family tree, but for the Emperor's favorite concubine to abscond with a crest-bearing heir without any further consequences, even in a time of political turmoil?

Now that you had the time to think it through with some distance, you actually believe what she told you about Remire. She was too genuinely upset the first time around, and even now, she showed up right away to make sure to tell you she would have prevented it.

One might accuse her of being irresponsible, for she clearly knew who she was getting in bed with – but she has no reason to lie. She had no idea you and Dimitri were watching when she expressed her disgust of them.

It's probably an alliance of convenience, not that that makes it any better. It's certainly unscrupulous, prideful, megalomaniac even, if power be the motive.

But the idea that they're in cahoots seems a little too convenient and simplistic.

You don't think that you'll have much luck explaining this to Dimitri, however – He wouldn't listen if you argued the facts with him. What he needs now, more than anything, is your support.

You still dare to hope when he gushes to you about how you're just like the heroes in the legends and how he might get to be the Wilhelm to your Saint Seiros, but he's starting to worry you very much.

…

A chill goes down your spine when you awake in Rhea's lap.

Giddily, gleefully, she hopes so badly that very soon, you will finally disappear, like someone else's fuzzy dream disintegrating into morning.

You will be the sand that someone else will rub away from the corner of your eyes, your body but the throne that will be taken possession of 'when our creator rules this wayward land once more'-

You know that she only wants her mother back, you understand that, having lost your father, you really do…

But when she finally leaves the room, it's like a weight was lifted from your chest, and a shadow from your soul.

...

You don't see much of her or Hubert in those last days, and it doesn't surprise you – you already know why.

Any moment now, she must be departing for Enbarr, and this time, she won't even think of asking you to come.

So you're all the more surprised when there's a rap on your door, as your in your room looking over preparations for a graduation ceremony that will probably never happen. It's fairly late and you weren't expecting any more visitors, but behind the heavy old woodplanks, you are met with the most peculiar sight:

She's got a travel back slung around her shoulder and holds the handle of another with her gloved fingers. In her hair is a flower that you got her for her birthday out of the common courtesy that you absentmindedly extend to everyone. Despite everything, you still remember her favorite one.

She's come to talk to you before.

With the passage of time, she told you more and more, even seeking advice, or expressing her sympathies – last time you saw her, you think she said something about what was happened to your father, and how she would help you get revenge if you so desired – You don't know to believe. At first, it was easy to blame her for things she hasn't done yet, but it gets hard to keep that up, day after day.

Before long, you found yourself falling back into your old automatisms and habits, speaking back when spoken to, while your soul retreats as far from your face as it possibly can while still remaining attached to your body.

It was almost like having to be around Jeritza when you knew what he was up to, that he was sure to meet his end but not quite _yet, _but unlike him, she would not do you the favor of staying away from you.

You know you're a fool and yet, she somehow makes it past the door arch, uncharacteristically fiddling with her thumbs.

You know why she's ready to leave, and that she cannot be convinced otherwise, but as to what brought her to your doorstep, you are utterly confounded.

"Edelgard? What are you doing here at such a time?"

"...I'm leaving for Enbarr in the morning, for urgent business, and before that, there's something I wanted to ask..." her voice seems to carry more weight than such a simple inquiry would merit. "Have you perhaps found any more lost items recently?"

"...lost items? Why? Have you lost something…?"

"...perhaps..."

It's unusual for her not to meet your gaze.

"You'll have to be a little more specific."

"It's a dagger with a blue velvet hilt, a simple design, but good quality steel… Do you think you might have see it somewhere?"

"...I don't think so..."

"Oh. I see… well, it doesn't matter anyways. It's not important. I should probably just get a new one. That's what Hubert would say, which is probably why I came to you instead of him..." She smiles at you, bitterly, with half a mirthless snicker. "There's nothing special about it, it's just that I've had it a long time… I barely even recall how I got it anymore..."

She must be aware that she had clearly failed to insert much levity in what had evidently become a loaded conversation.

As the rain patters down outside, she somehow ends up placing her bags on an empty spot on your desk while she sits down next to it, careful so as not to overturn the steaming teacup that you somehow end up handing her, and you end up having to remind herself that she cannot remember the days you spent together, that it was _you_ who made it so they never were.

"I'm sorry..." you say, but it's not exactly about the dagger.

"Don't trouble yourself over it. I would have had to get a new one sooner or later. To move forward, we have no choice but to discard the past sometimes. There's no point in dwelling on a past that you can never return to."

Again, you are struck by how Dimitri is her opposite in every possible way. He would balk at that, saying that taking time to grieve one's losses is what makes us human. He'd err on the opposite side, terrified of dim memories fading and hot tears drying up, unable to forgive himself for taking the space that he filled and the air that he breathed.

Only that he would probably imagine her face in such a moment to be hard and impenetrable, not frowning in contemplation. "Picture a broom. If it's broken, you cannot sweep the floor anymore, so, after a time, you replace the brush. Then later still, you replace the handle – replace enough parts, and it's no longer really the same broom, long before you replace the last piece you had left from the start… so it makes no sense to dither, really, even if it's that last piece…

You either move forward, or you curl up and perish – and you can't afford that luxury when you're responsible for others..."

"...-is this still about the dagger?"

"Perhaps not. But say, professor, have you ever heard the story about Theresia the second?"

"Was she one of your ancestors?"

"Indeed… One time, so the story goes, an artisan from what is now part of the Alliance made his way to Enbarr to present the Emperor at the time with a new invention. As the story goes, he had thought of a metal contraption, a kind of loom that could be operated without the need for the hands of a weaver, a sort of mechanism of gears and clockwork. He expected to be handsomely rewarded for his clever apparatus, but instead, the emperor at the time was horrified: 'My poor citizens!' she cried, 'how shall I feed them, if these devilish contraptions do all their labor?' Back in those days, the empire was still closely interlinked with the Church, and as it happened, the archbishop at the time happened to be visiting at the time. Dissatisfied with the emperor's verdict, the inventor took it up with her, arguing that surely, the church would value his ingenious work, for he envisioned a world in which no one need to do backbreaking labor, and this, he thought, would surely be what a benevolent goddess would wish upon her faithful – but she was sorely mistaken. The archbishop was disgusted, incensed even, as if the man's gearwork were somehow a deadly affront to herself and her goddess. She ordered the man's work smashed, and she decreed that if he were ever to build another, or share his knowledge of the mechanism with any other man, they would sever his hands and sting out his eyes to prevent him – The man left in disgrace, and came to be regarded as almost a heretic, and no history records what happened to him afterwards…."

"You think the Church was wrong to smash the contraptions." you assert, not even bothering to phrase it like a question. She's a bit surprised that you don't much respond to her questioning the church, but before long her brow creases as she drags an explanation from her brains, as she perhaps remembers that you were raised apart from the faith of Seiros.

You watch as she composes herself, thinking hard about how to phrase her next statements, as if she deemed it important that they not be misunderstood, especially not by you. "It's not that I think Theresia was entirely wrong – Some people _would_ have lost their work if such machines had come to be commonly used. They could find new work, but for some, it would probably have meant that they would have had to go through a time of considerable hardship. I would be a naive, deluded fool to deny that… but even so, I truly believe that both Theresia and the Church were in the wrong. In the many years since, how many people could have lived easier lives? How many impoverished commoners could have afforded the much cheaper winter cloaks that could be made with such contraptions? Is the work as a spinner or weaver really so fulfilling, so well-paid that it should be preserved? Or should they perhaps have gotten rid of the inequality that caused the people to be dependent on such work in the first place… if you look at it from more than just a short-sighted, parochial perspective, then you cannot escape the conclusion that for hundreds and hundreds of years, our people have been robbed of more comfortable, more dignified life, all because both Lady Theresa and the church wanted to avoid a temporary inconvenience!"

You're beginning to understand what she's getting at.

"Such hard words for your own ancestor...numerous people losing their whole livelihoods isn't exactly what you'd call a 'temporary inconvenience'."

"...of course not. Perhaps I phrased this poorly. I apologize if I sounded callous… Thank you for reminding me, my teacher. Even still, sometimes some amount of hardship simply can't be avoided. And neither can change. It can only be postponed, and the longer that goes on, the more the misery drags on, and the more people suffer as the flawed system slowly crumbles on its own. The world does not really go in circles – only spirals, that wind down slowly, but steadily. As a mercenary, you must surely know this… I believe a thinker from around the time of the Crescent Moon war called this phenomenon 'creative destruction'. For the new to arrive, the old must first be wiped away. This is why those whose power is founded on the old order will resist change such change by all means, and sustain states of misery and stagnation for years and years, because they have confused peace and stability… Even if they say that perpetuating cruelty and misery was never their aim, that is still what they do."

"But couldn't you say the same about the chaos that results from such change? Is the result of that not suffering as well? And who gets to decide that anyway? What of the people who have to live through such chaos? They must be asking why the bloodshed had to happen during their lifetimes. Why did _they_ have to suffer? Why their families? Who decided that they are acceptable sacrifices? How does anyone the right to decide that?"

"_Someone_ has to! Otherwise all this meaningless, irrational slaughter will just go on and on and on!"

She's no longer even pretending to be talking about her ancestor's stance on mechanical weavers, though the only reason that she is speaking so plainly is that insofar as she knows, you have no reason to suspect that she's not talking about hypotheticals.

She takes a moment to gather her composure, doubtlessly wondering what you must be thinking of her uncharacteristic outburst.

"It's one thing when you let yourself get swept away by the tides of circumstance, and then call that 'fate' once you have surrendered yourself to it – With this world being as it is, many people can do nothing but beg and plead and grovel for a salvation that will never come…

But I'm surprised that one such as you would think so... Perhaps you simply do not realize the terrifying power that you possess.

The injustices of this world will continue whether you interfere with them or not. Those who sit idle can only claim that their hands are clean because they take the world around them at face value and never considered how and why the world that surrounds them came to be as it is, what advantages they've been given, what power they truly hold, and what responsibility they have, for what they do, but also, for what they don't do... because it's difficult, or because it's inconvenient, because it's thankless work for which they will be hated, and because no voice from the heavens will ever tell them that they were absolutely right, and that all their sins were justified…

All it takes for cruelty to triumph is for those who could put a stop to it to do nothing. This is especially true for those of us who through whichever circumstance received more than our fair share of power… Once you realize what you are capable of, there is no turning back."

You stand there, quite a bit stunned.

You don't really know what to say – she has clearly had more time than you than think about those words, and pressed for an answer, you could not possibly have responded with the same degree of sophistication.

You're overwhelmed – before you could form an opinion, you'd first have to break down in your mind what she's even really saying.

So with your mind thus occupied, it's your dear old heart of stone that does the talking:

"...why are you telling me all this, Edelgard?"

You see a series of realizations alighting on her face, feeling after feeling, thoughts sparking further thoughts.

"...why indeed..." just for a moment, she doesn't meet your eyes.

"I suppose that would be because even I am not immune to 'creative destruction'…"

You think she almost said something else. "I should have known better, really. As emperor, I must stand alone. I, more than anyone, must keep moving forward, and discard the useless past, no matter how badly I wish to hang onto it. I cannot afford to be swept up in my own, selfish feelings, even if it means renouncing someone I-"

Before you can ask if she's talking about Dimitri, you hear footsteps drawing near.

"Lady Edelgard?"

She doesn't even wait for Hubert to arrive – maybe she doesn't want him to know that it's _you_ she's been talking with. He would only worry – and given that you've cut down his lady once before, you can hardly blame him.

"Farewell, my teacher."

She looks into your eyes one last time after she dashes out of the room, holding the door open with one foot because her arms are busied with her bags.

"I'm glad I met you, even if it was only for a brief time."

That is the last you see of the princess.

When she appears before you in the holy tomb, only the emperor remains.

You know she's not holding anything back when she finally uses her magic.

Her mask crumbles away like Dimitri's idealized illusions of the past – At long last, he has finally met her: The real Edelgard von Hresvelg, whose impassive, dead-eyed stare meets him from the gap he had ripped in her helmet when he tore off the porcelain mask he has now crushed underfoot, every second of her unblinking colorless gaze now an affront to everything that he has lost.

He has no time or patience for her explications; Everything she says merely tightens the noose of her guilt; Every word she speaks is a brazen affront to the victims of her crimes, every silence an admission of guilt, and try as you might, you cannot hold him back -

And you realize, then, that nothing in your power could have stopped this war, no matter _which_ of them you might have got a hold of – Because this time, it's not_ her_ who throws the first stone.

This time around, the declaration of war comes from Dimitri's lips when he promises to hang her head from the gates of Enbarr.

…

You tried your hardest not to plunge down that ravine;

You curse and scream as your feet slip, but no amount of clawing at the dirt will help to accomplish anything other than bloodying your nails, and even as you tumble down in free-fall, all your fear is for Dimitri. How could you leave him like this?

You should have warned him about the coup… you wanted to, you really did, but in his current state, you weren't sure how to do it – hoping to find just the right moment, you missed your window of opportunity.

"Wait! Dimitri…!"

You remember faintly, lying pierced and opened in the darkness, arms curving at odd angles as you tried to raise them up, and a cold tide coming in, and all you can think is: Not again! How could you allow this to happen again?!

But you can't feel any legs for you to kick with, and instead of screams, your voice is bloody gurgles, and its no relief at all when the water takes you.

Every half-dream you could have is consumed with nightmares of waking, and when you finally break through, you rush from your dark slumber like a guard who fell asleep on the job – but it's too late. You recognize this creek on whose brackish muddy banks you find yourself sprawled, willing your sluggish limbs into submission as one would clean a dusty house of cobwebs after a long journey.

Your body shows no sign of disuse; Instead, the holes torn in your clothing are all filled up with pristine pale flesh.

You wonder what became of those children that Dorothea took in now that she was never here to adopt them. You wonder if anyone ever listened to Linhardt's rambles, or encouraged Bernadetta to make friends…

And there are new worries now, indeed the number of people you're panicked about has just about doubled. When you met Dimitri – _if_ you met Dimitri, in that other world, he said that he had led all his followers to their deaths… Dedue. Rodrigue. Gilbert. - and what of their children? Cheerful, enthusiastic Anette, fierce, independent Felix, who in some ways reminds you of your own follies, and all their other friends and classmates -

You think of Ashe and Ingrid telling you about their favorite legends, about Mercedes' consideration and her own, closely-guarded dreams, and Sylvain in all his byronic complexity -

And Dimitri… oh poor Dimitri… you never should have taken him down there with you.

…

It's even worse than you expected.

Both the current state of the country, and what you find waiting for you down at the foundation of the goddess tower in the goddess tower.

* * *

**A/N:** At this point I'd like to note that this is only supposed to be _a_ possible order. None of this immature "my favorite route is the canon route" BS.

One of the great things about 3H in particular and videogames as an art form in general is the real nondeterminism that you get precisely by _not_ imposing an order and leaving it wholly up to the player which routes to play first or last. In a book or TV show there would have to be an order which would imply something about each version's validity – here, no single route has all the info, and you can play them in any order and still be plot twisted to hell and I think this makes an important statement about reality that I didn't mean to undermine here.


	4. Crusader

You are the protector of the weak, and she is the boot of strength and tyranny, pressed hard onto the faces of men

_As the rain falls on the path_

_I chase your shadow_

_I don't feel a single drop,_

_Or the ground below_

…

Supposedly, the point of choosing Dimitri and his house would have been to try and save him, to see if you could guide him to some kinder fate than the one he was met with the last time around.

But this…

This is _worse. _

How is this not worse?

Cornelia didn't even have to bother with the assassins this time.

You can imagine it all too easily: When he first returned to Fhirdiad, he must have been reeling from Edelgard's betrayal, and likely, the fallout of your own disappearance as well. As far as he was concerned, she would have been _your_ murderer as well. He was likely brooding all by himself in a a foul and volatile mood, too distracted with his own black thoughts to take any note of the plot that was being hatched against him, and when he was finally framed for the regent's death, the young heir's constant talk of murder would have seeded just enough doubt in the minds of the palace staff for the witches' treacherous words to be believed… or at any rate, enough for them to tell themselves that they could be excused for bending their knees to the sorceress' will.

He was probably forced to fight his way through some number of palace guards who were only doing their jobs, perhaps even men that he knew, whose families would have suffered harsh punishment if they had defied the dreadful lady – And though he'd killed in self-defense, to escape with nothing but his life and the clothes on his back, it would likely prove too much for him, maybe not right away, but surely over time.

In his father's absence, Lord Rodrigue had raised him to fear hell and to hold himself to the standards of the heavens, but knowing that he could never again reach those heights of purity, there was nothing left but him but despair and wailing ghosts urging him that he might as well earn the long-reserved special place that awaited him down in the eternal flames.

This probably didn't happen all at once.

The hopelessness must have consumed him bit by bit as he wandered this world by himself, staking out the pits of its misery, while you slept motionless at the bottom of a river.

If only that body of yours could have reassembled itself just a little bit faster, if only you had made it here a little earlier… then maybe you would have found something other than this:

You find him in a grotesque nest of dead imperial soldiers – goddess, he _smells. _

His once neatly maintained hair has transformed into a wild, pale mane surrounding his sallow, sunken face.

The best you can say that he at least seemed to have found the means to cover up his missing eye.

He towers above you now – he's grown into a tall, hulking beast, though you wonder how exactly he managed that, given how emaciated he looks despite it all.

If he survived to this day, he must have been eating _something_ all those years, and you dearly hope that it was chiefly dandelion greens and stolen rations.

He must have lived in total isolation – and considering that alone, the state he's in shouldn't have come as a surprise but –

You never thought that you'd have to dissuade him from gleefully torturing that imperial general to the last – if you remember correctly, he was a relative of Caspar's. You were forced to kill him last time as well, but not like this.

How… how could this possibly have happened?

You still remember how he used to be – for you, it was practically yesterday. Sure, Felix always told you that he was a violent man and if you're honest with yourself you always sensed something worrisome about him, but that can't be the whole story either.

You recall him crying after you were forced to take out the civilian militias during Lonato's rebellion, his guilt-ridden wails about how he ought to have found another way –

He wanted to _help_ people, he always wanted nothing more than to protect the weak and downtrodden. He was always stopping on his way do do good deeds and teach little orphans helpful skills… and maybe he was irresponsible, unrealistic, and impulsive, maybe he had always been vindictive and even a little judgmental, but he had always been aware of his flaws and struggled with them, always pushing himself to improve beyond what anyone could reasonably expect from him – He was a good person. He wanted to be a hero of justice.

He didn't deserve this.

It's too cruel.

Death might have been kinder, and you have milder options still – You would have abandoned this timeline in a nonexistent heartbeat if it weren't for one sentence -

"_Someone must put a stop to this cycle of the strong trampling the weak!" _

He's still in there. He might be hurt, lost, misguided and pushed to the edge, but like a droopy plant that has long been starved of water, you think that it's chiefly for want of proper care.

Whatever quest you had in coming here, whatever answers you sought, whatever destiny was in store for you, you realize now that it is _over. _

Whatever your doubts, whatever personal sentiments may be, they don't matter anymore – you have a responsibility.

From now on, everything needs to be about Dimitri.

…

The people of Faerghus are in need of their king, but Dimitri doesn't have the interest or the capability to fulfill that role, and while you could say that he is being irresponsible in not assuming these duties, he's not giving anybody any illusions: If they'll offer him an army to raid the imperial capital with, he'll take it, but if they won't, he'd gladly leave on his own.

You begin to see why Felix was always so critical of the kingdom's cultural preoccupation with loyalty and honor, why no one had just persuaded Dimitri to wait back when you asked Gilbert to join Seteth's army – If Dimitri were to march off a cliff, you think there's a nonzero chance that they would all follow him, as his stalward friends, his faithful subjects - He's not asking anybody to put him on a throne, or to build their wayward hopes on him – The prince had made his intentions very clear.

But in their desperation, they need something to cling to, they need their Rightful King, even if he is, at best, a figurehead, a mere symbol that sparkles only at a distance, through the tales and humors that they all hope might make it back to the subjugated populace far back hope which still groans under Cornelia's cruel yoke.

No one really knows where they are going.

No one really knows what they want. Left to themselves, you can easily see how they might find their doom – it's up to you then.

Everyone is looking to you – Your former students, to whom your return must be the first glimmer of hope they were lucky enough to see in a long, long while, as well as Gilbert, and Rodrigue, once he arrives, who seek to guide their young liege in his father's place, but don't quite know how.

They start conferring with you, because they've had no luck with Dimitri, and before you know it, you realize that you're effectively in charge – You have become the brains of this operation, but it's direction could come only from its heart, which is these days quite preoccupied with haunting the ruins of the old cathedral, absorbed in thoughts of fire and brimstone.

You don't think you've ever frowned this much in your life.

Everyone looks to you, and you do your best to lead them as you think Dimitri would have, if he were truly here with you in this present moment – you're not sure how close you come to the real thing, even with Gilbert ever at your right hand, weighed down as he is by his own burdens, still tiptoeing around Anette – it's weighing on her, too, and at some point she got into an argument with Mercedes, and that's how you really know the world is ending, as if misfortune were making a point to rain down on you from every possible angle, piercing your resolve both from unexpected directions and old familiar stings.

With Rodrigue around, Felix inevitably makes a point of glaring daggers at him, and Sylvain's usual attempts to liven up the mood fall short in this harsher, darker climate – they only serve to irritate Ingrid whose bossy concern has long since crossed the line into unwarranted harshness.

The air is thicker than ever, but this is only a side effect to the certainty in their hearts, that they are all at their wits' end, that your little group is breaking apart, and that the situation looks hopeless and dire, leaving you not even a proper base of operations with much of the kingdom still under imperial control.

So many of them had lost people they cared about, so many had been forced to cross blades with their own blood, and there might be more to come.

At times, it feels like your one genuine place of solace is the greenhouse where you try to reassemble what's been neglected and overgrown for five years into some semblance of flowers and vegetables, but even this place is heavy with memories now – your one saving grace is that Ashe is at your side and not, as he was in some other world, long since killed in service of the Rowes, but even so you cannot pretend that your little reunion had been complete.

You used to come here often, and in that sense, you ended up fitting in quite well as the 'heart of the blue lions', but yourself, Ashe and Anette weren't exactly alone here.

There's a marked absence palpable in your midst and as a fellow commoner, and one of the gentlest ones in your ranks, it was only natural that Ashe would be one of the first to say it out loud:

Dedue.

After years of mistreatment, he had scarcely believed that anyone could possibly want him as a friend, but in truth, he had been essential to your group with his calm, grounded presence and his stalwart insistent caring… and now, he would never know.

Among the small sample of your generation that had made its way to the academy, (early overachievers like yourself and Jeritza included), almost all had been harshly affected by the abject irrationality of this world in one way or another, but even in such company, Dedue's life stood out as having been especially miserable, if not outright the very worst:

Everybody he knew had been brutally murdered before his eyes, his whole people decimated, his idyllic village life with his family exchanged for constant cruelty and mistreatment.

No wonder then, that he and the prince had been so inseparable: No one else could even come close to understanding what it really meant to see the better part of your loved ones massacred.

But at least Dimitri was a prince. He would be mentioned in the history books no matter how miserably he were to crash and burn. Though he seemed intent on disregarding them for the moment, he still had many friends that would care if he were gone.

Dedue had only him, and perhaps, in the last few months (of a bygone year), he'd been beginning to open up to yourself and some of his classmates, especially Ashe and Flayn… but now, it seemed like that had come to nothing. The one serving grace about all this abysmal injustice had been that Dedue was still a young man, and that the future might still hold calm, peace and acceptance for him, but now, even that seemed to have been extinguished, leaving only a handful of memories of something nasty, brutish and short, a string of meaningless suffering, soon to become a statistic…

The very idea of it was just too cruel, not to speak of the realities it implied -

And Dimitri must be thinking the same, how utterly wrong it was, how nothing he might go on to do with his life could possibly be worth the price it had been bought for, and that certainty must tear at him in every waking moment, leaving room for only one thought:

He must kill Edelgard.

_Break_ Edelgard. _Crush_ Edelgard. _Smash_ Edelgard to pieces. _Burn_ Edelgard to cinders.

Cut off the seat of her wicked thoughts and spill the contents through the eyeholes.

Beat her till perhaps at last some semblance of human feeling would show up on her face even if it were only the basest of fear.

You dare not consider what he intends to do with her remains.

The wheels were ever turning, the disturbing fantasies ever sprouting up like rampant weeds, as if he'd seen all the world's evil packed into one woman's face, all the world's coldness and indifference, all its uncaring, impersonal disregard and all its unyielding, crushing strength, all its boots pushed down into the faces of the weak, for him to stab at from hell's heart and spit at with his last, bloodied breath, or, failing that, to make her the sheath for the happy blade he once gave her, so that it may rust there forever.

The flesh must go cold, or else, it is to be purged from this world forever, and he will hear of no other course.

When you as much as suggest that it might be wise to take back the capital first, he snaps at you, and though you know that he's not at his best right now, even though you're… _you_, it still manages to sting. Isn't it your duty to lead the church? Didn't Rhea put you in charge`? Shouldn't you go get her, just as the faithful wish it to be?

You're aware that he doesn't know what was done to you, or how very little choice you had in the matter, but it hurts – it hurts precisely when it's coming from someone who always made a point of encouraging you to show your feelings.

The rational, unflappable part of you notes that, in a sense, it shows how he thinks: His life isn't his own, so he cannot fathom that yours should be yours either, and you would hardly deserve him at his best if you couldn't handle him at his worst, you mustn't take this personally… besides, going for the imperial capital might not be the worst course of action. It's true that decapitating their forces would throw the imperial troops into disarray, you might end the fighting then and there, and you might find Rhea, which Mercedes, Seteth, Catherine and other devotees appear to be pushing for. To be honest, you've kept your distance from her this time around, unsure how to act with her now that you know what it is she wants from you, but that doesn't mean that you wish death upon her – She's still Flayn and Seteth's family, and she's important to Cyril and Catherine.

Besides, you think that the news of Dimitri's return and any military victories he might score would do more for the citizen's morale than the man himself could at this time. You don't quite trust him to make the right decisions yet, not when their enemy was liable to use his subjects as hostages.

So perhaps, under the circumstances, at least for the moment, the soundest decision might actually be to march forward and give the empire a bloody nose, and maybe in time, through steadfast application of care and patience, you'd get Dimitri to the point where he might actually be presentable by the time he returned from the capital.

He'd been all alone for so long – he would decide to turn back of his own accord once he spent some more time among people, if only you gave him some time…

...

During your campaign for the Great Bridge of Myrrdin, you are snapped out of your habitual calm when you notice familiar faces in the ranks of the enemies – There's that same spineless blond Alliance noble who made himself a nuisance last time, that austere imperial general with the topknot and the batwing-like decorations on her armor, and there is Lorenz, ever the fashion victim, in his fancy purple armor, now twenty-four years old.

But you had been expecting them. What chills you is the speck of red right next to him, and how it turns out to be what you think it was once the lenses of your eyes manage to focus:

The illustrious son of house Aegir, high atop a shapely war horse, garbed in an ornate red coat of arms, waves of copper-hued hair cascading down his shoulders…

What on Earth is he doing here?

What-? How-?

Your second startling realization is that no one else seems all that surprised to see him here – was he not always a proud citizen of the empire, ever extolling its illustrious history and former glory, as well as his own noble duties? And it should not be strange to see him show up alongside Lorenz, given that the two had been rather friendly at the academy.

If Edelgard had to send a messenger to try to bring the Alliance lords under her sway, Ferdinand must surely seem like the obvious choice – indeed, you may have inadvertently laid the groundwork for this yourself when you found a new home for Ferdinand's excess tea set all those years ago and made the two acquainted with each other, unaware that it might lead to a future where they stand at each other's sides while facing you as their enemy…

So you get why he's here with Lorenz, but what still baffles you and you alone, is what he's doing here at all. Perhaps, if you hadn't known him any better, this wouldn't surprise you, but unbeknownst to your comrades there was that other life where you had grown to be quite close, and learned some important things about him…

You knew, for example, that the horse beneath him was named Karlotta, often affectionately referred to as "Lottchen", an expensive, well-bred beast that had been a birthday gift from one of Duke Aegir's concubines. You remembered many occasions on which he had confided in you in long conversations at the stables, telling you of his ambitions and insecurities while he cleared out her horseshoes or brushed the animal's luscious chestnut coat…

You knew that for all his faults, he was upright, stalwart and independent-minded and believed fiercely in thinking for oneself, disdaining any who would just blindy follow authority.

The Ferdinand you knew had rebelled against the emperor even in your absence, to the point that he was forced to flee with only his most loyal soldiers. He was not the type to follow orders without question – indeed up to this very moment, you would have been convinced that he would never follow any sort of leader unless he were convinced that they were on a just and righteous course…

So what was he doing here, facing you down in the name of a tyrannical conqueror?

What could he possibly have to gain from that?

The contradiction alone drives mighty cracks in everything you believe, and your thoughts race to reconcile it – perhaps he turned out somewhat differently without your influence or, he saw no real chance to escape without the hope promised by your presence, but try as you might to make that explanation fit smoothly into the holes in your knowledge, it won't cease to stick out in bulges and creases.

In your heart, you know that Ferdinand von Aegir would never have backed a cruel tyrant – you remember that, even as he charges at you with his lance.

He doesn't remember quite as much of you as you remember of him, but his eyes are filled with reminiscence all the same – his much smaller pile of memories is precious to him all the same, but there's something else as well, an expression that you recognize very well – in that other world where you were his instructor, you got to see it more than anyone else:

The look of defeat.

He wore it once when he spoke to you of his resigned certainty that he would never beat Edelgard, and he wears it now, knowing well that he will never beat _you_.

"You know… Edelgard has always been somewhat obsessed with you, " he muses as he steels himself to face you.

Did you hear that correctly?

You would have thought that any significance you once held to her would be long forgotten, discarded on a pile along with any other feeling she ever had, anything that wasn't of use for advancing her ambitions. Had she placed a bounty on your head, as the one who is most loathsome to her? Or...

"Honestly, I'm a bit jealous…"

Wasn't she his enemy? Didn't he want to _best_ her, once upon a time?

"I guess I'll just have to impress her, won't I?

I hope that Ladislava and the others will tell you what I did today..."

His expression settles, his decision made. "For this, I shall be known as the legendary Ferdinand of Adrestia!"

He charges at you with a desperation that could only be mustered by a man who fears the footsteps of oblivion at his heels. He always wanted to be remembered, not in a vainglorious way, just I any way at all – and now he's no longer sure if even glorious death could grand him that honor.

But there's nothing glorious about it, for every strike of his that connects, he knows that it will be returned to him a hundredfold.

You move on instinct, because you must – he's far outclassed, and he knows it, his every endeavor doomed. "This will show her!" he wails, even as reality proves him wrong with every passing second. "This will show her that I'm nothing like my father!"

His father? His father, who, insofar as he told you the last time you saw him, was wrongfully dispossessed by the emperor?

You have many questions, but there's so little time, much less a place for them while carnage swirls all around you.

The young noble's final moments prove to be nothing to brag about, nothing grandiose at all – here, for certain, is the Ferdinand you used to know, urging his soldiers and his fellow generals to defend, no, _protect_ the stronghold to the last – But the strict-looking wyvern rider follows him rather quickly, struck down by Dimitri's hand, lamenting how she could not repay some debt to the emperor – No one backs down at all, as if _you_ were the plundering horde lusting for conquest, and _they_ the ones hoisting up the banner of justice with the last of their strength.  
They did the same when you came here with Seteth, but there weren't as many familiar faces, not when Ferdinand was right beside you, brought to the other side to what now looked less to be the inevitable tide of righteousness, but merely a chaotic eddy of fate that could easily have washed him onto some other shore.

You're not sure that you look like heroes, not when you find yourself stepping over his fallen body, soiling his hair with your boots, sword dripping with his blood, forced to keep moving at all cost by the carnage around you…

But Dimitri has no such doubts.

Not of his foes villainy, not of his own damnation. But the more he asserts that they're not better than him the less it sounds like a consistent tragedy, and the more it resembles an excuse for violence. He stabs the general's body a few times to many, as if one hole through the chest weren't enough to finish her, splattering the ground while her eyes are already losing their luster.

"Fools!" he cries without the faintest hint of mercy, "Throwing away their lives for that wicked woman!"

Wicked she may be – it's too early and, at the same time, too late for you to doubt that – but he doesn't know what her followers have been told, what she's promised them. At the very least, they too must have loved ones back in their country. If you're being attacked, you surely have to defend yourself, but there is no need to be this excessive…

You fight on, taking charge where you can so that Dimitri doesn't, doing what you can, and focusing on the small mercies.

Whether it is because he align with the kingdom's traditional values, because expects the customary Faerghus honor, or because your larger army appeases the opportunist in him, this time, Lorenz throws himself at your feet and pleads for mercy, cowed by the deaths of those braver than him.

He crumples before you, shaking, humiliated, yet alive – and you don't think twice about the choice to keep it that way, having seen enough death for today.

See, you tell yourself, you _are_ making a difference. You must believe that you are making a difference, you must keep going, you must shield Dimitri from his own darned recklessness-

Then, a mercy from the heavens:

The clouds open up, and out comes a familiar face, blocking a cowardly strike of stray magic from that defecting alliance noble who had slithered away to some hidey-hole once the action got heated:

A figure in broad armor, wearing gold ornaments and a great shawl with tribal motifs.

His looks are probably not what most people in Fodlan would have associated with a guardian angel, but this is the closest you have come in believing in such a thing as a godsend:

It's Dedue.

He's alive!

He's actually alive, standing before you in flesh and blood, face covered with scars, but alive all the same. He just saved the prince's life for what must be the bajillionth time, and he knows it, too – For the first time since you climbed out of that river, you see a ghost of genuine joy on Dimitri's gaunt features.

No manner of obsession could have managed to numb out all the relief he felt, the tears of joy welling up -

Some may have thought it odd, to see two large, grizzled men embracing tightly amid a gore-stained battlefield, especially since one of them was crying profusely – the soldiers, some of which had only known Dimitri as a hard and wrathful man are rather off-put by what must look like yet another display of volatile emotion, but as far as you're concerned, it's the first thing that has felt right in a very long time.

The next thing the young prince does is to chastise his vassal for being so reckless with his life, because of course he does… maybe you're getting through to him.

...

_Maybe_ you're getting through to Dimitri, but _probably_ you're not getting there fast enough – You can't win this war with hope alone.

You need soldiers, stratagems, and a reply to Claude's offer. You should have been expecting it it to arrive, just as it did last time… As expected, Seteth didn't mind joining the Kingdom army when you're the one in charge of it, but it seems that there's some elusive curse preventing you from marching to Gronder with all three armies under a unified banner.

Perhaps with you here and the Church's resources under their thumbs, they think there'd be more to lose than to gain from joining up, if Dimitri is thinking anything at all; He's hardly even listening to yourself or Gilbert, and he has no patience at all for Claude, whose intentions are still unclear.

He didn't doublecross you last time, but that time, the whole arrangement had been his own idea for his own purposes…

Then again, you barely know how their attempt at joining up turned out the last time, only that they both perished whether they worked together or not.

This time, you think you might actually witness that entire mess -

The reality of it hits you when you catch Annette half-wishing that she'd never made friends with anyone from the Alliance or the Empire if they were only going to end up fighting.

Many of the people that were destined to butcher each other on that field had once been cramped into the same dormitories, running into each other every day, and using the same facilities – Annette herself had spent much time in the Library, and hence come to know many of its other regular denizens, such as Linhardt, Lysithea and even Claude himself.

On one occasion, you think Linhardt once complained to you that Annette had once ratted him out to Hubert for slacking off in some well-meaning attempt to get him to apply himself for his personal growth, a notion to which you imagine he would have readily agreed, much to the chagrin of a certain sleepy bookworm. And it shouldn't have been hard for Annette to find him, either, as he and Edelgard were avid readers themselves – but if you remembered correctly, they had never spent quite as much time lingering in the library, tending instead to just grab a large pile from the shelves and disappear to their rooms with it – and you think Annette had just spelled out why.

They would have known all along that this strife was coming… To know that, and to play at being friends with everyone regardless – Well, you figure that even they could not have been that cold-blooded. No surprise then that they had mostly restricted what little mingling they had ever done to their own housemates, insofar as their official duties and clandestine plots had even left them the time for that. Suddenly you're no longer certain that keeping her distance from Dimitri had been a a question of snubbing him.

But for all her determination, her pokerface wasn't perfect, nor her walls impenetrable – though you were fated to be enemies, she had sought you out – you, and to a lesser extent, Miss Lysithea from the Alliance class.

You also realize also that once upon a lifetime, you had ran away with what few friends she had allowed herself to have, though they might otherwise have stuck with her to the bitter end – at least, it seems that Ferdinand did…

But whether or not she regrets making enemies of you, you do not doubt that she will crush you with her full might – It's the sort of person she is, she wouldn't let her personal feelings stand in the way of her goals. For better or for worse, she really IS Dimitri's diametric opposite in every possible way…

…

"I wonder what the Emperor looks like..." you hear from one of the kids living at the monastery. "I bet she must be really scary… " You try to convince the little girl that Edelgard is, in fact, barely a head taller than her, but it proves rather fruitless. "No way! For all this fighting to be her fault, she _has_ to be scary!"

"You wouldn't believe what I saw the other day!" one of the guardsmen tells you, "Prince Dimitri, patting some little Orphan on the head! Does this mean that even this cruel man has a heart somewhere?" Of course he'd say that… after all, this man hasn't known Dimitri any other way.

...

You're not sure who shot first, but it _could_ have been someone in your forces.

It could have been Dimitri, impatiently plowing forward, or it could have been Claude's forces, shooting first to preempt being shot at. You tried to keep the distance from the Alliance forces, at least on your flank, but pandemonium breaks loose all the same – Someone, somewhere, must have lost their nerve.

You'd think that there was no reason for you to fight, but even as Claude points that out, he doesn't give Dimitri the chance to strike first and things are not nearly so simple as they seemed when you thought that your only challenge would be to get all three forces coordinated to strike at the much larger imperial army, that friend and foe were clear-cut here, as were innocence and culpability-

But were they really?

Even if Edelgard had called back her imperial hordes, you don't think Dimitri would have relented, and if he would have to plow through Claude to get at her, he surely would -

And as for Claude, you had assumed that he had maintained neutrality out of self-preservation, to protect the Alliance from a strife it could not withstand and divert the empire's attention from it, but you're left to doubt whether it was really that simple.

And for all that he was the one to propose cooperation and would sure have preferred talking it out, he had once described himself as the embodiment of distrust. He's not the type to let down his guard or let anyone know what he's thinking – He will absolutely attack before he'd let anyone get at his soft underbelly.

Your eyes search in vain for the bratty, easygoing boy you remember from the academy -

in his place is a grave, serious man, regal, bearded, authoritative, wreathed in opulent golden clothing, armed with an enormous bow made out of bone, riding in atop an enormous white wyvern – The creature sticks out like a sore thumb lacking any stealth whatsoever, but despite the obvious glaring target, no one dares to come near: He's a flying archer chasing you down on a wide open field.

He's only a man, and Dimitri could and would effortlessly snap him in half if he could ever get his hands on him, but even so, he easily goes toe to toe with the enraged prince just through guile and sheer speed – it worries you enough that you can't bear to let them out of your sight, though you're no longer entirely sure who you're worried for – You suppose it must be Dimitri – but all around you in chaos and slaughter and _he_ has no such compunctions of making sure that you can keep up.

You're not the only ones on this battlefield, and you are assailed from all sides by painfully familiar faces.

Claude is neither the only one nor even the first. Moments earlier, Dimitri had skewered a large, burly warrior who could only have been Raphael, without as much as a second thought – They used to be classmates. The burly merchant's son had never been anything other than helpful and considerate – You think you once saw him asking the former house leader for training advice. The days in which Dimitri could never refuse a request for help were beginning to feel alarmingly far away.

You wonder who's going to have to tell his sister.

You already won't ever forget Anette's shriek though you heard it only moments ago – When you rushed toward her, you found her body unharmed but her eyes full of tears, and in the distance, you could make out Ingrid, holding a bloodied lance, and before her, the stained outline of a body, still dressed in the ornate purple robes of a mystic, the white hair spilling on the ground almost unmistakeable.

There was no choice, they would later tell you, never quite believing her own words – There was an obscenely powerful Ghremory in the enemy ranks who had singlehandedly blasted through scores of kingdom soldiers, using both dark magic and light in perfect unison.

She was fierce, unrelenting and uncompromising like only one driven forward by desperation could be, and operated with uncompromising efficiency.

In a flash of sparking magic, she'd been right behind Anette and Mercedes, looking, without doubt, to take out the enemy healer. The girls stood there frozen in the face of mortal danger, but Ingrid acted fast and came swirling down on her pegasus from whichever heights she'd been surveying the carnage from.

The first time, the enemy evaded her, teleporting out before she could slow down from her first strike, but the next time, Ingrid's aim was true, and her opponent's little body crumpled without much resistance, struck while she'd still been frantically trying to catch her breath.

She'd been too powerful to capture alive, too dangerous to let live, such unparalleled determination cut short at only twenty years old.

Sylvain would later tell you he'd encountered Ignatz, looking rather more mature and determined compared to the timid boy he'd once been… the Gautier heir had been the first to admit that they couldn't afford to hold back, not if they wanted to live to see the next dawn, but jaded as he was, he couldn't wholly bring himself to believe in his own undeniable righteousness, or that some kid he'd once discussed landscape paintings with could have done anything to deserve the bite of his lance. Instead, he'd reflect on his last words – How he'd said that he was helping Claude build the future of fodlan, how he understood that they, too, must have had their own reasons, things that mattered too much for them to back down.

You do understand – you didn't envy Leonie's position when she challenged you, telling you that she couldn't hold back simply because she knew you. You get it, you were a mercenary too once – this must be worse for her, forced to choose between the ideals she was striving towards and a promise she made to the very person who inspired her to walk that path in the first place.

So many in your class had been forced to fight those they considered part of their family – So why should you expect to be spared?

You're almost glad that your father isn't here to see you fighting; It would probably break his heart.

At this rate, there wouldn't be much left for the imperial army to mop up, but neither are they standing back and waiting:

Soon, there's a hail of arrows bearing down on you both from the front _and_ back:

Right, the ballista. There's an outpost of wooden planks plated onto a hill in the center of the field. You remember discussing it in preparation for the mock battle, considering how to account for the fact that everyone would inevitably come rushing for it… but that would have been a beginner's tactic, far too straightforward for the likes of Edelgard and Claude.

And since Dimitri's attention is wholly taken up by whatever enemy is currently closest to his face, it seems almost inevitable that you will be lured into a trap if you don't act.

So you sneak your way to the wooden stairs, careful not to alert the archer with some treacherous creaking of the boards, fully resolved to take them out as quickly as you can – but the top of the hill holds a bitter surprise, and the only reason that you survive that first moment of shock in which you stop and stare is because your counterpart atop the hill is frozen as well:

Bernadetta?!

But she grips her weapon tightly and with a courage that you'd never known her to possess.

"Professor…? You're… with the enemy… That means… That means I have to kill you now!"

She actually shot at you.

With no time left to think, you evade, your boots and armor scraping against the wood as you slide down the hill, hoping that it's inclination would at least provide for a temporary cover.

But you have already sprung the trap.

The sound of combustion envelops you from all sides, flames licking up from below – in a mad dash you tumble down the platform more than you really jump.

Grunting in pain, you roll around in the mud once you get to the bottom, and only when you've made very, very sure do you pull off your scorched overcoat.

Some part of you can't help but admire the bold efficiency of the maneuver, after all, it was inevitable that everyone would be going for the hill.

At this moment you're too pumped with adrenaline to feel much in terms of pain but later that day Mercedes would have to mend quite a few blisters –yet right now, you can't afford to do anything other than scramble to your feet, and right you are to do so, for there it is: The full might of the imperial army, lying in wait like a tightly coiled pit viper.

You're not as screwed as you could have been, for you doubt that the fiery beacon behind you could have gone unnoticed, but the prospect of Dimitri making a beeline for your foes fills you with more worry than relief. For now, you have no choice but to draw your blade and hold your own, but you can hear the rest of the army coming – Heaven knows what had become of the alliance forces...or Bernadetta.

You don't want think about it. It's easier just to fight, as you have done all your life, your mind empty of anything but your next move.

But that's no longer as easy, though not in any way because you remotely struggled to cleave through the enemy hordes – within moments of witnessing you, the ones left standing all back away in fear – Some run, as if they had caught a glimpse of something from the pits of hell, yet others still persevere and come charging back at you after regaining their bearings.

Though they are your enemies, you cannot say that they were not courageous – like Ferdinand had been, or like that general who'd had the misfortune of catching Dimitri's attention – at the time, he'd just been protecting his comrades. You again recall a different lifetime, where a certain girl told you that you were more terrifying than you realized, that not even the knights or imperial army might be able to stand against you, and at the time, you were surprised that she'd bring up such a thing, but now you suspect that she must have spoken with real fear, fear that you would one day become her enemy, and sadness, too…

You almost understand her.

It doesn't take long for the masterful hacking of your weapons to draw the attention of the enemy generals, and before long, a pair of voices cuts through the clamor to rally the troops and reorganize their assault. They're familiar voices.

Hubert's eyes narrow in disdain as they fill with recognition. "You're interfering with the plan… Looks like we'll just have to get rid of you."

At the edge of your perception you're aware of voices protesting, that you're the messenger of the goddess, that you bear the lost crest of legend, and that surely, no ordinary man could stand a chance – But undaunted, the voice of an ordinary person disagrees: "We will not be needing crests or relics to be grabbing the victory! Here, we will be showing that all we need to do it is human hands!"

While Hubert stays back to coordinate the assault at large, a single warrior flings herself at you with unparalleled courage and unmatched speed, braids of purple hair flinging through the air as a thin, curved blade meets yours.

Petra. But why? How?

If anyone would dare to fight you after such a display, it would most certainly be Bridgid's princess, but what is she doing here, fighting for the empire that subjugated her homeland… is she forced to be here? If so, she doesn't show it. She had always been mature and certainly not the type to flinch away from doing what must be done, but unlike with Edelgard, you never had cause to doubt her honor.

She she is fighting you now like the word depends on it – though she is chiefly the distraction. Despite their earlier stunt, the imperial troops are not nearly out of explosives and fire assails you from nearly all directons, likely, at Hubert's command. But the man himself isn't so busy that he couldn't pitch in with some ranged support when you least expect it – more so than the natural flames before, the dark magic _burns _and brought with it a loud, demanding pain that insisted on being heard.

"_Bow before Her Majesty!"_

He sends his sorcerers at you with half a mocking little bow.

The soldiers' movements are more coordinated now, and even you are much starting to feel the weight of your numerical disadvantage.

Hubert wears a smirk that makes it quite clear that he's got you where he wants you, though he couldn't hope to beat you one-on-one, he has you outmaneuvered – That is, until the cavalry comes in, delayed, as they may have been by the need to go around the hill, an army of your own.

Before you know it, Sylvain and Lorenz have swept in at your sides, while Ingrid bears down from above, and behind them come the soldiers.

Sylvain shoots you a strained impression of a daring grin as he gets Petra's blade out of your face by way of his lance, countering her not just with its longer range, but with his dreadful superhuman power which it served as a conduit for.

You waste no time in barking out orders and the more of your allies join the fray, the more the tide turns in you favor, and the more your opponents find themselves beaten back. No one could quite place the exact moment when the balance shifted, but one by one by one, the imperial troops must have come to realize that they were somehow clearly losing, trudging backward into the scorched mud with their doom hot on their tails – Before they knew it, they'd found themselves overwhelmed and frantic, and in their desperation, guaranteed to slip up sooner or later.

Your once overextended forces were now pooling at this side of the hill and whatever was left of the alliance forces had wisely chosen to stay their hands instead of tearing into your flanks – surely, Claude must be sitting in some tree surveying the mayhem, as he had five years before, possibly looking to pick off the loser, or at the very least, to remain the last man standing.

There was Anette, blowing holes in the lines of enemy archers and mages from a distance, determined and stalwart though she could not hope to match the imperial mages in sheer prowess.

Mercedes did not even need to come all that close, given that she'd always had an impressive range with her healing magic, which she'd always been uniquely suited to, but it was her arrival that truly cemented their advance, for the imperial soldiers could hardly beat any more holes into their formation once she arrived.

And here was Dedue, appearing right beside you, an impenetrable wall blocking the enemy weapons one by one – He took no pleasure in it, but he showed just as little mercy as his liege would have commanded, carrying out his will with uncommon ferocity.

And if he was near, then the prince couldn't be too far.

The empire might have had the larger army, but the kingdom's ranks were packed to the brim with terrifying elite warriors that had been holding their weapons for longer than they'd been holding quills, each of them worth an entire regiment, apart from Felix and Prince Dimitri, who were each an army onto themselves.

It was all over when they arrived, the prince plowing forward like a juggernaut, and Felix hot on his tail, hardly missing a beat in scolding him for his recklessness – But since his words had fallen on deaf ears, he soon sighed and set to work, for it was all he could do now. In a sense, you felt the same now. If the prince was going to forge ahead no matter what, it was up to the two of you to rescue this operation and twist the resulting chaos into some semblance of a victory.

Dimitri paid little heed to anything around him, anything, that is, for the flesh and blood of his enemies, delicate features twisted by craving and lust, birthing gore and destruction like he was born for nothing else, anything else he had ever been, or done, or believed in burned away in hellish fever dreams and long, long years, and where he was a brutish behemoth bereft of his former princely elegance, Felix' movements almost resembled a dance in their elegance and precision – the death he dispensed was quick, painless and without flourish and all the more plentiful if that's what it took to keep the piteous foes out of Dimitri's claws, yet away from the kingdom's own soldiers.

Though hate to think about it that way, both of you know better than to get in Dimitri's way, so you stand back to back, severing those that come at you in resigned, bitter unison.

But at least it was not for nothing,

Somehow against all odds, you appear to be holding your own against the empire's much larger forces… winning, even.

Even your opponents must be seeing this.

You catch a glimpse of Hubert and Petra, bloodied and leaning on each other.

It seems bizarre, given that you have memories of a world where they ended up as foes – while many of your former students had expressed regret and anguish at the prospect of fighting their classmate, Hubert hadn't seemed all that fazed from having to fight her and Bernadetta.

As far as he was concerned, the rest of the eagles had been dead to him the moment they'd decided to side with the church – real or perceived, he _did_ loathe a traitor; If he had no mercy for his own blood, then it should scarcely be surprised that he had only spite, scorn and contempt left for his former classmates…

But seeing them now, you recall that back at the academy, you had seen them together many times - Both serious-minded, studious and mature, you once upon a time had the impression that they'd always gotten along. It seems that this time around, they still did.

You had to think them valiant – standing against the likes of yourself and the elite knights of Faerghus with no crests, no relics, no exceptional talent, only whatever grit, determination and tenacity had sustained them to this day.

You'd try to talk them into a surrender, but realize with some measure terror that Dimitri would never allow that.

"You have only one thing left to do before you take your place in the eternal flames… " he growls, "WHERE. IS. THAT. WOMAN"

Though ostensibly beaten, Hubert remains as irreverent as ever, a thin, defiant grin arising on his pale features.

"Are you sure you want to know that?"

He _knows_ something. Something's about to happen. You sense it plainly, but you don't think Dimitri does – the minister's mockery only manages to enrage him more.

"Shut your you wretched reptile! I should have known what she really was, it should have been enough to know that she associates with the likes of you! Because of you… because of spineless wretches like you who follow her without thinking… that all this land _has been bathed in blood-!__"_

"That's rich, coming from the unwitting pawns of the church..."

You don't know what would have happened if this had been allowed to continue, or if you could even have stopped it even if you'd wanted to, but just one moment later, none of it means anything anymore.

"Professor! Your Highness!" It's Ashe, panting, hands propped up on his knees.

He was supposed to be stationed with Gilbert on the northern flank.

"We- we've been forced to retreat. Our position's been overrun… I'm sorry but… We couldn't hold them back, they'll be here any moment..."

"Imperial reinforcements?! Who's commanding them?"

Dimitri doesn't wait for an answer – He's thinking exactly what you're thinking, he knows exactly what you know, deep in your very flesh and blood, even before the frantic screams and shouts of the retreating soldiers filter into your consciousness.

There is indeed a second regiment coming your way, joining up with the one before you having made quick work of the forces you entrusted to Gilbert and Rodrigue, and yet, it is but the shaft of spear tipped with what appears to be a lone warrior of unparalleled prowess – you'd sensed her before you saw her, but you would know that crimson armor anywhere.

There is no way you could forget.

You fought her in the goddess tower before, but she was holding back.

You fought her in Enbarr when she was already weakened.

But neither of these are the case right now:

She drives out hordes of foes before her, cleaving through them with her weapon or bludgeoning them with the spikes at it's back – The massive contraption is bigger than herself, resembling a heroes' relic, but not any that had ever been mentioned in any sort of record; And she swings it around with ease, more light-footed in the crimson plates of her armor than some might have been in a comparably billowy ballgown, striking above all with power that often left spiderweb cracks where she struck, not to speak of the shattered bones of your soldiers.

She will be described in later days as something that stepped out from the pages of a fantastic tale, like the dark lords in epic stories – Tales will tell of her weapon striking again and again and again like a tempest, as if time and space themselves bent under her will -

And perhaps they did – You recognize that power, the flashing, flaming sigil, you know it very well, though you hadn't known its meaning for the longest time, and you would have to, for you held that very same might that she was now unleashing after keeping it hidden all this time, and because you knew that might, there could be no mistaking it.

But how could this be? You were positive that she had a minor crest of Seiros, and never had Hanneman or Linhardt mentioned the possibility of one person having two crests, not on any of their various ramblings on the subject – instead they'd often bent your ear about how unlikely and mysterious it was for even _one_ person to have the crest of flames – Sure, according to the legend the Hresvelgs could boast of some modicum of divine blood, but it should have been dilluted through countless generations – _you_ got your might directly from the source when you were implanted with Sothis' crest stone.

So how?

How?

It's not like you can stop to ask her while she's mowing down your army – Someone needs to slow down her advance, and _fast_. There aren't many in your forces who could hope to pin her down in battle. It would _have_ to be you… you, who holds the same power.

But you've barely made your decision before you're beaten to the punch.

You're not sure when he got so close, his movements like the inconstant waxing moon, a hunter springing from his hiding place after carefully stalking his prey, dark cloak passing in front of the sun as he pounces not unlike a great panther – The emperor is ready to meet him, firmly parrying his strike, but for the first time in very many years, she is overpowered – Perhaps it's simply because boys mature a little slower that Dimitri had not quite reached his full potential back at the academy, maybe it's the extra inches of vantage or the fact that he spent very many years doing little else but kill, but though you're certain that this was not the case at the academy, he's stronger than her now – and she was never exactly reliant on brute force and all things considered, always the more well-rounded fighter, but so far, she'd always been able to rely on the option of out-bruting her opponent if all else should fail.

She didn't have any experience in fighting opponents that were physically stronger than her because she _couldn't_ have – their number was few, but Dimitri could most definitely be counted among them, and he held nothing back.

"You will pay for all that you have trampled for the sake of your selfish arrogance and greed! I'm going to snap you in half like the rotten beast you are! I'm going to smash your smug little face until your neck cracks in two! I'm going to break open your ribcage and slurp the juice out of your black, black heart! I'm going to tear off that sick head of yours and piss into your skull, you crazy heartless bitch!"

Yet even as he surely managed to give her battle more than any other foe she had felled today, her expression remained steeled and composed, even looking up at him with a distant sort of pity, though it didn't much color her uncompromising rebuke.

If an outside observer had seen them clashing like this and been asked to point out who was the villain and who was the hero, there was a good chance that the rabid raging of the raging prince would have seemed more off-putting than the Lady's stalwart command, and they might have found themselves fearing that she would lose simply because she seemed the less terrible evil.

Seeing that she was challenged, her allies, through weakened, prepared themselves to assist her, but though hard-pressed, she still found the breath to address them:

"Fall back, Petra! You must survive to lead your people!"

"But Lady Edelgard-"

"Worry not, Hubert. I will take care of the rest."

With a dutiful nod, Petra turns, dragging her companion along with her before he could try anything desperate and the last you see of them is a glimpse of them leaning on each other as they flee -

But it's not like they could have done much to help here:

The battle had become a clash of inhuman warriors – The prince clawed at her with the ferocity of a demon, his face twisted into a grimace of bloodlust while hers remained unmoved like that of a statue. If he had lowered himself to the level of a beast, then she appeared as something just as above a mortal man as he was below it, but there was nothing godly about it; Instead she seemed an asura, a jotunn, a titaness piercing at the heavens in jealous rage, and nothing he could do could move anything in her icy face, which just fired up his rage more and more, as if she were all the world's cruelty and indifference rolled into one shape, an exquisite White Whale that he would spit at to his last breath.

Strong as he was, he wasn't thinking, and as his element of surprise waned you could see her surely gaining the upper hand – and he would not, could not be persuaded to fall back but you know that you have only one choice.

She sees you coming, blocks you opening strike, with melancholy apparent in her eyes even as her face does nothing – She had known this day would come, and she had accepted it, resigned herself to it, and met you with her full might.

But while she might have beaten either of you if you had fought her one on one, she cannot take you both.

She certainly cannot take you _all _as your allies start pouring in, she can't negotiate all of your allies as they come pouring in, Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain wielding his dreadful lance-

Whatever she may be, you can surely beat her if you all join forces -

Strong as she may be, she can't carry all the world's weight and burden all upon her own shoulders.

Oh, she holds out against your assault, longer than any mere mortal should have any right to, but mortal, it would appear, she still is, however subdued her dull surprise when she finds herself suddenly struggling not to sink to her knees in the dirt.

"I… lost?" There's some genuine disbelief there, but not the rage of wounded pride that most of you expected – she organizes her thoughts in a moment, propping herself up on her weapon. "As expected, you aren't making my path an easy one."

Then, she sounds the retreat. For a supposed megalomaniac, she still had quite enough presence of mind to escape while she still could – which is more than could be said for Dimitri.

Before the sun touched the horizon, the once clear demarcations of black and white had been muddied beyond repair – for some out there, it is _you_ and _your_ allies who look like the monsters.

For some, you are as hateful as the foes you had chased to your own doom.

…

You have got to put an end to this.

You have got to end this madness once and for all – No one else will do it, no one else would dare.

Gilbert won't, and Rodrigue can't, not when he's passed out out of this world

You had loved being a genuine part of something for once in your life, even it's heart, but it's _because_ you are an outsider to Faerghus who was never impressed with its customs or values that it now falls to you to think the this thought that even Felix couldn't fully finished for all that he might have complained only to get swept up by the tide one way or another.

So when you hear what can only be Dimitri's footfalls heading out of the camp in secret just as you'd always known they would, it is plain that you can no longer avoid this confrontation.

* * *

This got way longer than I expected, and this seemed like a natural cutoff point.


	5. Penitent

You are the redeemer, looking to restore this flawed, imperfect realm to the rightful glory of days past, and she is the tragic agglomeration of all its fault, the flame of chaos that would burn it all down, the inevitable, ultimate consequence of all that is wrong with this world.

_Cross my heart_**_  
_**_Making vows I know will be betrayed_**_  
_**_A sad girl's pleas  
Live only for a breath and then they fade_

So. Much. Death.

The emperor had challenged the gods – challenged the whole world, until the foes became to many even for her to endure.

She had, however, escaped with her life and retreated with a good amount of her forces – she'd taken heavy losses, but they were far from annihilated, and the woman herself had escaped with her life.

That, of course, sits ill with Dimitri – but you cannot continue this campaign, not right now.

Your soldiers are wounded, you're out of supplies and you're still deep within enemy territory, you got as far as you did because their lines were stretched thin, but if you have her the chance to pull back her remote forces, they would surely close on you like a trap…

Besides, your allies are shaken. You actually can't say for sure that you aren't.

The ranks of your foes were filled with so many familiar faces.

You're not sure if the destruction was as complete as it was the last time around when neither you nor Seteth had interfered in this battle. It wasn't a complete mutual annihilation. A fair bit of the imperial forces managed to retreat, and you think you saw some alliance troops making off as well – not to mention that your former students from the Blue Lion house are refreshingly not dead.

You can easily guess why – Without you here to temper the Kingdom's assault, or to keep Dimitri from pursuing the imperial forces further, it's not hard to see how there could have been no one left alive.

So as bitter as this ugly, pointless slaughter may appear, it is, in a sense, a victory.

But not everyone managed to flee: Bernadetta was up on the hill when the retreat was sounded; She kept shooting her arrows through the curtain of flames, made deadlier still by the fires, but she couldn't run, not with all around her burning.

This morning you thought lowly enough of Edelgard to assume that she'd callously left her to die, but you find that her sorcery engineers had taken some precautions to make sure that the center of the platform would not burn. They might have intended to have a mage warp her out at the end of the day, even so, the emperor must have known that if the tides of war turned against her, this mission could easily _become_ a suicide commando even if it didn't start out as such.

By the time the smoldering flamed has burnt themselves out, she must have died from smoke inhalation or the mounting heat. Was she hoping to the very end that the others would come and get her?

It leaves a very bad taste in your mouth -

You can't imagine that she would have volunteered, not unless she'd changed almost completely from the timid girl you once knew.

But were _your_ hands clean? You once thought that Edelgard was clearly the villain and that Dimitri was an innocent victim of her wrongdoings, a hero even -

But now you'd backed him as he lead everyone on this mad chase, with no regard for their safety, or even the loyalty of his followers, determined to throw his life away when so many were building their hopes upon him, wishing for him to save his kingdom from perdition...

You'd been told once and again that though you were a good executive leader you had never had much drive in the larger scale of things, that you tended to go down the path of least resistance and do what is asked of you regardless of whether you liked it. That's probably how you ended up on path set before you by the church the last time around.

You had never _felt_ much driving you – The first time when you experienced anything like that was when you first started to become invested in your class and wanted very badly to ensure their well-being; and you surely felt something with regards to tracking down your father's killer.

Sothis once called you a boulder that tumbles whichever way it's pushed.

But right now you can't afford this. For Dimitri's sake, and for everyone else's, you need to put down your foot and confront him. You've got to stop him through nobody else will...

….

At last, the rightful king returns.

Given the remorse he feels for his less than stellar deeds he can hardly believe that his people would welcome him back; It's almost like a spiritual experience to him, a profound moment of coming home that you can't quite understand without a faith or a home of your own.

The pragmatic mercenary in you thinks that there people would have welcomed _anyone_ with cheers who would rid them of Cornelia's yoke, and all they'd heard of their new king was that he'd beaten back their foes. They were rebelling before your army even got to the capital, all they needed was hope – Dimitri needed hope, too, so you don't tell him that.

You don't think anyone could blame him for escaping with his life, rather, it was likely his inability to forgive himself for that which had broken him to this degree.

What brought you here was a moment in the rain where you didn't come to blows as you had feared – instead, the young prince somehow wound up crying in your arms, though you could scarcely fit them around his huge, bulky form complete with all his armor.

But when he returned with you to the camp, something in him had changed.

The man beside you was no longer the brutal general you all had endured for the last couple on months, but neither was he the repressed, mercurial young man you had known at the academy – He couldn't go back to the illusions of childhood, but in a world that was no longer strictly black and white, it was possible for him to attain something other than pitch black damnation even if he had fallen short of immaculate holiness, nor was it any longer required for his enemies to be certifiable demons for him to justify opposing them.

The next day, he stepped before his allies as a new man – having granted his troops the much needed recovery time, Dedue and Gilbert had been able to convince him to partake in a hearty meal, a warm bath and a good night's sleep. He turned up with his once wild hair tied back, still a somewhat martial luck far from his younger self's neatly combed Prince Charming getup, but a whole lot more civilized. He finally felt worthy of his father's shining white armor graven with the emblems of his family's legacy.

He's back. Or perhaps he's more present than he's ever been, you do think Dedue said it best that all the disparate sides you had seen of him were ultimately sides of the same coin, and that what you were seeing now was a new state of harmony between light and dark.

Some of your allies, such as Felix and Lorenz, aren't convinced all at once, but they clearly want Dimitri to suceed and Felix in particular is ready and willing to help him if atonement is truly what he wants.

And here's the most tragic thing:

In a private moment on the walls of Fhirdiad castle, he tells you that he never really desired revenge, rather, he felt it was his obligation – He was overwhelmed with feeling, unable to process this world injustice, and the wrath gave him a purpose where he could find none, a crutch to cling to, at first, which had eventually swallowed him whole.

He'd been raised to be dutiful and honorable above all things, so all his life, he had considered only what he _must_ do, what he _ought _to do, especially once weighed down with the burden of being the only survivor.

What he _wanted_ to do – well, he never thought he deserved to pay heed to that. But all along, it was completely different, and yet, not all that surprising. Though tried, tested and matured, you recognize the young man from the academy there, the one who was passionate about helping little orphans and protecting the downtrodden, the one who once wished so much for peaceful solutions.

And there's another thing that finally makes sense: All the times you spotted him talking to himself, assuring his fallen loved ones that he had the resolve to take down Edelgard. He seemed so obsessed with destroying her, so why in the world would he be worried that his resolve might falter?

Because, it would seem, some part of him had never wanted to fight her and still didn't want to – you once feared what he might do in pursuit of her head, now you're worried by the hurt he would suffer in striking her down.

His own peace of mind could be best served if he could somehow make peace with her or failing that, offer her mercy, but what he wants may not be the same as what she desired.

Either way he seems determined to liberate the victims of her rampage.

Of course you want the same as him, more so than he knows, or than you can even explain to him at the moment. If you could convince her to surrender, if you could stop her without destroying her, that would be great – but you're not sure that she could ever accept living in this this world as it is now after all she had done to reject it.

You knew well that she had no such compunctions about fighting _him..._

…

Oh, but poor Dimitri!

All this time he wanted to avenge his parents, but he was so swept up in his feelings that he never stopped to think and work out in detail what actually happened.

But now that he has the presence of mind to actually investigate what occurred and look at it with a somber, discerning eye, the truth he finds is worse than he expected.

Himself and his father were indeed betrayed by their own family; It just wasn't Edelgard.

Some imperial representatives were involved, chief of all Arundel, but there were just as many culprits in the Kingdom's own ranks, corrupt, bigoted nobles that spurned the King for the high unforgivable crime of wanting to make peace with the neighboring countries.

Not to speak of the most startling co-conspirator of all:

The king's own wife, Dimitri's own stepmother, the only maternal figure he had ever known.

Even you can't get over how vile that is – sure, Dimitri described her in glowing terms, but he was not the sort to speak ill of the dead and might have felt that he owed her simply for taking him in though he was not her son by blood – The red flags were there from the beginning, that she hadn't mentioned her own daughter at all, that Dimitri was afraid to approach her for something as trivial as to teach him to sew, what he'd said about seeing her 'leave him behind and dissapear into the flames', that Cornelia got her position thanks to her interceding -

You're not sure how much you can believe of Cornelia words, clearly she was trying to mess with Dimitri. You're rather proud of him for not taking the bait as you know he would have none to long ago.

To tell Dimitri that his mother ditched him because she loved her biological child more seemed like the kind of fear a troubled child would cook up all on their own, or what you would tell such a child if you wanted to confirm everything they'd ever feared.

You wish you could go back to the early days of your first timeline and interrogate Edelgard about her parents, clearly she hadn't told you anything but perhaps you might have been able to figure out something from her deflection – At least it should be possible to figure out if any of the other imperial nobles knew of her mother having mysteriously returned at some point, though from what Gilbert had told you about Rodrigue's investigation that might have been futile as she never turned up.

Besides, for how little you know about mothers since you never knew your own, you find it hard to believe that someone who could leave twelve year old Dimitri to die and coolly walk past the hacked-up bodies of people she had lived with for years would be capable of any sort of sincere love for a daughter she'd never known.

Many of the kingdom people see the empire as an ominous monolith but having spent two years with Ferdinand and the others you know a whole lot more about its inner workings than anyone here possibly could. Arundel was the current regent, in a government comprised of Prime Minister Aegir and those who backed him in the insurrection. You recall Linhardt expressing surprise that his and Caspar's fathers had turned on the Prime Minister to back Edelgard instead – hard to believe that Arundel could be regent if he and Duke Aegir weren't all buddy-buddy. That would make him an enemy of Edelgard's father – his powers were rather curtailed upon Arundel's return.

If she wanted to see her husband, why work with the man intent on dethroning him, who, indeed, was supposedly exiled to the kingdom for those same political machinations? As for her daughter, she had been in Fhirdiad for years before that, as the king's wife, she could have seen her any time.

And if she was unaware of her brother's nefarious machinations and in fact opposed to him, why would she recommend Cornelia, and why would she be taken alive? Why not kill a witness?

You knew some things that Gilbert and Dimitri didn't, in particular, about the true nature of that group that was behind the slaughter in Duscur, the ancient enemies of the goddess whom you had once pursued to their lightless lair.

You know, at least, that Conelia had many of the corrupt nobles under her sway long before the coup against Dimitri, that the regent was supposedly too busy with frivolities, perhaps, too enticed - that Cornelia, were she a normal human, would have been much older by now, and your mind even goes back to Edelgard's story about her parents and the supposed love at first sight, that tale of her father being irresistibly drawn to a beautiful stranger he met at the goddess tower…

To begin with it was rather suspicious for one girl from a minor noble house to bed the two most powerful men in Fodlan right before their fall from grace…

And what does this mean for Edelgard, their 'creation'?

Had they orchestrated her entire existence from the beginning?

If her mother was their operative, did that make her half-Agarthan?

She has this accursed crest that _nobody_ should have, that _you _have because Rhea 'created' you, not from scratch per se. She'd told you this story like a remainder of a purer, more distant past before she became the person she is now, but that last speck of purity might have been as illusory as Dimitri's supposed happy childhood with his kind beloved step-mother. She wasn't like Dimitri, she hadn't believed it quite as wholly, well aware that she was probably _choosing_ to take it at face value, but at the same time, she _had_ treasured it, decided to hold on to it because at least it _could_ be true.

Now you knew for a fact that it wasn't.

You know to little to conclude anything for sure, but one thought which you cannot escape is that the Agarthans had the kingdom every bit as infiltrated as the empire was, and that there were just as many corrupt individuals cooperating with them. There were few innocents here.

Perhaps they had always meant to have the two countries fight, and it appears that until your interference at Gronder, Edelgard and Dimitri had both been playing straight into their hands… but so had you. The last timeline had likely been _exactly_ what they wanted, right up until you got a hold of their location, and you could scarcely take credit for that; If the imperial arsenal wasn't staffed with such loose cannons as Hubert or the Death Knight, the future would have looked grim.

You're not sure where you are now, if you have escaped the rails of their plan yet, or if you ever will… all you can do is press onward.

…

Seeing as you've reclaimed most of the Kingdom's territory, and that fighting both powers at once had not worked out so great for the empire at Gronder, it shouldn't be too surprising that they had geared up for a preemptive strike against the Alliance. If they won, the Kingdom would be encircled, but if they lost, you might band together – it's relentlessly aggressive but it makes a terrible kind of sense.

Only when you hear who's commanding the enemy forces do the reports give you pause – The Empire's Regent? He's taken power?

What about Edelgard?

You're surprised that you still fell that pang of worry though she's your dreaded enemy that would not let you live if given the chance to kill you.

You hear she's still in bed from the wounds she sustained at Gronder – her uncle took power while she was still in critical condition.

She left on her own two feet when you fought her, but you realize now that she must have been standing on adrenaline.

An unbidden image shoots through your head – the emperor, bleeding through crude, hasty bandages and coarse raw stitches, some quick, careless workaround. Certainly Hubert must be kneeling at her side, perhaps Dorothea, wishing she'd learned to master healing magic like in that other life where you helped her overcome her initial aversion to it to great effect... of all her classmates, she always showed the most regret about turning against Edelgard.

Yes. It is almost a pang of worry, over an enemy whose death should be cause for celebration.

It must be an old habit that you never quite shook off.

…

The, one night, there is a knock on the threshold, and as soon as you open, Ashe has all but spilled into your room, his face in a veritable state.

"Professor I- I don't know what to think-"

He tells you of the results of his investigations. His conflicted feelings about Catherine. What he learned about her actions. Her involvement, and his foster brother's death.

All the while he speaks, he looks so very anguished and conflicted, torn between all he's ever believed, his admiration for someone he used to think of as a hero, and the sense of justice he once saw as simple and absolute.

In simple and objective terms, what you've learned is simply _vile. _The you that still waltzed into Garreg Mach would have called bull on it in a second and if you're honest your father would have done the same. You try to reconcile it with the valiant, admirable Catherine you know. The one who made you think that despite your occasional misgivings, the Church can't be that much a bunch of zealots if an outlaw like her is not just allowed here, but protected, and people like herself, Cyril and Shamir get taken in.

But you do recall how she threatened you – was it in this world or the last one? - , how it once _stung_, though you didn't know what to do with the feeling at the time, the feeling that she wasn't seeing _you_ but just the interest Rhea had in you. And, to be fair, - and that was definitely the last world – you recall how she once discouraged Caspar, a _different_ Caspar than the one who now serves in the imperial army – from idolizing her too much.

You try your best to confront Ashe but it's not like you really have that much wisdom of your own to share. There are many things he _could _legitimately feel about this. Hate, forgiveness – no one could blame him for either. But only one is what he actually feels. Once he was young and pure and now he's finding out where the boundaries of his forgiveness lie.

You're not even sure about yours.

When you confront Catherine, she denies nothing. As she sees it, she has her beliefs, others have theirs, and though there might be coexistence, there can be no understanding.

But she has no delusions of being a pure hero. Her doubt comes through like drywall behind peeling paint, but she cannot doubt, not when she has so much staked on her faith, done so much for it.

To question whether her actions are right is to take on more guilt than she can bear.

You think back to Dorothea – the other Dorothea – and what she said once, about whether putting down rebels is really part of the churches' teachings. You don't find the passion in you that you would need to rush to the defense of 'your' side. You see how this might be seen, from a certain point of view, as a system that can lead to situations like Catherine's -

Even if you don't suppose malice where simple failure seems enough to you.

But you do see incompetence; Catherine's suspicion that Christophe was only being used, the tacit implication that he was a scapegoat… it reminds you so much of what was later done with Lonato, or the Western Church, indiscriminate purges where there should have been investigations to uncover the patterns behind the crimes, find the ones pulling the strings in the back – How come that Edelgard and Hubert were able to uncover Shambhalla's location in just five years, when Rhea had thousands of years in which she did little but cut off the heads of the hydra?

You wonder if you're being selfish, tinged by your own lingering disappointment at something that now never happened… but the one you blame isn't necessarily Catherine.

You feel sorry for her, because you know how it is to put your faith in someone who disappoints you. (You're not sure, at that moment, if you mean the other world's Edelgard or Rhea)

You don't so much see slavish devotion as you see yourself, and what you have known of ignorance – especially now that you've seen how much the people of Faerghus depend on their beliefs, how much their traditions pervade their society.

Catherine was raised to trust Rhea above all, no, more than that, she idealized her from a young age, owed her her life – sometimes you get the impression that she even has a bit of a crush on her, though nothing ever came of it. When she learned of Christophe's involvement, she was torn, and turned to someone she had been taught to trust, just as Ashe was turning to you now. If the person she had come to had been anyone other than Rhea, Catherine's life could have been very very different.

She would not be tormented by this guilt every day.

At this point you do not seriously consider the possibility that the church was in any way involved with the tragedy, but you're disturbed by how even Catherine seems willing to excuse the casting of scapegoats to "keep the order." You know very well by now that Faerghus has not exactly been orderly these last years. You've seen how they all were willing to pretty much follow Dimitri off a cliff if you had not been the one to confront him.

Certainly, loyalty is a grand thing, but there must be limits…

Still. You were told that the rebels Christophe was involved with _did_ supposedly have plans to assassinate Rhea. So even if she didn't go about it in the best way, she was just protecting herself, right?

But its enough. Enough for you to remember Edelgard's speeches and proclamations, Hubert calling you a puppet of the goddess, the things they had said, about the church's supposed corruption and tyranny, the many accusations that Seteth had dismissed as propaganda. He, too, had observed that Edelgard's soldiers seemed strangely motivated to have been simply sent out by the empire's greedy corrupt lords. Weren't they really just like Lonato or Christophe? Manipulated as they might be, did they not have legitimate grievances?

You realize that you know very little about this organization that you're about to wind up as the leader of for the second time in a row. You still think that Edelgard is putting out twisted bad-faith accusations, but you can no longer dismiss them as baseless either…

The Church might have had its flaws, this world, as it was, wasn't perfect, but that didn't justify tearing it all down, and killing hundreds in the process, right?

Even an imperfect world was worth saving. Even an imperfect world gave you no right to destroy it.

You're sure that's what Dimitri would think. There's no need to even ask him, even the question would probably make him mad – but you're really no different than him, at least in this one respect:

Once, good and evil seemed obvious, but now you're confused.

...

Claude has some nerve, to ask you to cooperate after your last meeting took place on a battlefield.

Didn't you kill some of his allies? His classmates?

If he wasn't meaning to double-cross him, that would be quite cold of him, too. You wonder if he's taken in Rafael's little sister like he thought he would. Or does he really care only about winning?

Many of your allies don't trust him, Ingrid least of all.

You're not sure how you would have decided, but you support Dimitri in fully taking charge, and what he wants is.. well, to be honest, back in your mercenary days you would have called this 'walking into a trap'. Those who didn't know Dimitri back at the academy remark that he is greatly changed.

But greater is the change in you, because you agree to this. Long he remained neutral, but Claude has now antagonized the empire so he's the enemy of your enemy.

It might not feel good to set out to save your former foe, but it was the most constructive course of action, something you would both benefit from. It's in Claude's own interest to play along, and he expects you to come because it benefits your faction.

You know how Dimitri thinks of it of course – for him it's a matter of principle to help those in need. That you stand to gain something is practically a negative, but Dimitri has grown to the point that he will not hurt himself for the sake of claiming 'purity'.

You think of the young prince who chased after a young mischievous Claude, mistaking his obvious flight for a distraction maneuver. He's no longer that naive boy, so you have faith in his decision. After all, he's proven your belief in him right beyond all your expectations.

And he does it again. Against all odds, what you find in Derdriu is without doubt an ally. You don't doubt that he's pursuing some objective of his own, but it aligns with yours. He wants to get at the empire's regent.

But his offer of cooperation seems genuine. He really asked you for help though he had all the reasons to begrudge you, simply because it was his best bet at saving his people. You're not sure Dimitri would have done that, honestly. He seeks peace wherever he can – that's why he reached out to build a bridge, putting himself at risk to win Claude's friendship, something Claude himself claims he would not have done if the roles were reversed – but he would not compromise on his principles of switch friend and foe at his convenience. Claude is, without doubt, a very different sort of person than Dimitri is, and you can't make heads or tails of him before you're forced to gear up for battle.

He seemed to have his own reasons to target the empire's regent – that man who's been so clearly messing with Dimitri, playing at being his uncle while planning this deluge of war all the while.

He made your hairs stand on end from the very beginning.

Even when you first saw him speaking with Dimitri, something about him unnerved you, and you felt the urge to grab Dimitri and take him far, far away from that poisonous tongue – back then you had no rational explanation to justify such action, but now you have your own suspicions.

It is here that Dimitri surprises you, and you think back of that time you saw him picking through the library at night. You realize that he's been done, all the time Dedue alerted you that the prince was sneaking through the library in the night -

He was never quite as naive as you thought, nor as defenseless as it seemed. He was _onto him_ all along, so close to getting the dirt on the true culprit before Edelgard's actions sidetracked everything.

Now he can finally demand answers – but he fails to take the bait, he no longer allows Arundel to use their supposed kinship to pull at his feelings.

All things considered, you're very proud of Dimitri – even if the operation doesn't end up turning up very much. Both Dimitri and Claude turn up empty-handed.

Arundel proves too strong and too stubborn to be captured alive, and you get nothing out of him – that is, Claude and Dimitri don't, because they don't know what you do.

They haven't lived through all this once before, or seen what you've seen.

Dimitri would never consent to having an enemy's body defiled and Claude knows better than to suggest an autopsy. But you, for your part, can definitely guess at what it would reveal. This dark magic, and especially the turn of his words are far too familiar.

That was definitely an Agarthan. A slitherer, as Hubert might say.

You even suspect which one, it comes back to you now, for twice you lived through it, what Edelgard said about 'giving her uncle the signal', and who showed up then in order to plunge you down that ravine – Thales. Your father's killer, as surely as Kronya was. Dimitri wasn't the only one to attain long-outstanding justice today.

Perhaps Claude was onto him, too. You'll never know. You can't make sense of him. You don't know what he's thinking. You understand just enough to grasp that he played you, read you very well – He _expected_ you to talk sense into Dimitri. He _knew_ you'd take Fhirdiad, and that you'd come to his aid…

Though he downplays this, and says it only looks that way – and then, he starts all this talk about dissolving the alliance, even handing you his relic. You've seen how Dimitri treasures his – how it's a symbol of their family pride! - and you wonder how he can give it away so callously. Later, Lorenz will be outraged that he would end the Alliance's glorious legacy so easily, and you'll try your best to be tactful in reminding him that he too, _did_ switch sides. You don't think that that future he envisioned would have ever come to pass, even without Claude giving the rains to the kingdom, he would never have marched in at the vanguard of the alliance – indeed you know very well that you just spared him from pointless death.

But all of this is later.

Right now, you don't know what to think. You were just beginning to think that Claude might be a heroic person rather than just a scemer, and then he tells you that he's leaving, that ruling the Alliance was only ever a means to an end, a stepping stone or secondary goal, a far cry from Dimitri or even Edelgard who saw their respective realms as the be all end all of their destinies. You can't say that it's a bad think that Claude has a life outside his job, but you can't help but think that he sounds just a little irresponsible, especially compared to Dimitri – is he just washing his hands of the people who believed in him and died for him, or very nearly did?

He was never too decisive to begin with, what with his whole 'neutrality' gig – but you don't feel like you can really pass judgement on him without knowing his reasons, his background…

He doesn't dwell on it, but you do hear him wondering what might've been in you had chosen him.

Clearly, he has esteem for you, the very makeup of his plan shows his regard.

You _do_ wonder what might have been if you chose his house, but it's too late to ponder that now.

Though you lived a whole other life, you now find it hard to imagine a life in which you didn't get to be an honorary Blue Lion, so much have they shaped you. They've really taken you in as one of their number, made you indispensable to them, nay, Dimitri made sure to include you at every step of the way, dragged you to all of their meetings and celebrations.

Dimitri says that you taught him how to live, but just as truly, you might say that he taught you how to feel, and what it's like to belong somewhere.

Still, you think that if you had chosen to walk alongside Claude, you might have gotten to know him better. He seems so in-control, but observant as you are, you catch fleeting glimpses of another side beyond that, more pensive, less certain – He probably has his own long story as well, same

as all the other students.

You wonder wherever it is he is going now.

…

Once back to work, Dimitri wastes no time in overworking himself. You've even had Dedue sending you a concerned note about it.

He wants so, so, so much to make up for what he's done – to better the plight of his people; And one step on the way to that goal is to take back the fortress city of Arianrhod.

But what you find there is not the confirmation for your causes' justices that you were longing for after the situation with Catherine, and expected to find in a renewed confrontation with the enemy, but yet more doubt -

You were already wondering why you hadn't seen them before. What had gone different, when you didn't start out leading the church to begin with… Hanneman and Manuela.

Good-hearted people every bit as much as what you'd thought Ferdinand to be – you are met with them here as your enemies, and more than their magic, it's their words that tear at your heart.

Manuela has wholly discarded the trappings of a healer and comes at you baring the steel fang she wore strapped to her thigh. Always she used to talk to you about how she hated seeing promising young souls breathe their last in her infirmary – and what reason would she have to side with the same group as the Death Knight who had stabbed her once?

Then again, both of them were originally citizens of the empire. Manuela's barbed words to Dimitri sting even if they're no longer quite accurate, for he knows that he has _been_ a beast in the part -

Even he understands why people would side with someone other than him. He can no longer dismiss the fallen foes as followers of pure evil as he once did – no, that veneer of rage was probably a warped means of protecting himself to begin with.

The imperial mages rain destruction down upon you – Hanneman is with you, speaking of his dreams, and how he doesn't mind dying for this 'new' empire, as if it's somehow different from the corrupt, elitist, scheming entity of the past, the ones that he left behind…

You sat in the same staff room for the better time of a year – twice over. The two of them had their quirks, they weren't the most tactful or sensitive, but you can't believe that they would support unilateral conquest. Perhaps Edelgard was using them, like her organization had made use of people like Lonato and the western church, or even the events at Duscur, and if so, that would be truly reprehensible, but – Hanneman was no fool. He _left_ the old Empire. And for all that Manuela could be loopy and irresponsible sometimes, there were moments where you felt that she'd made some very sharp political observations…

Of course, even smart people might be left astray by their heart's allegiance to their home countries… but the reason you knew this so well was because you'd seen the lengths that your own faction had gone to support their rightful prince even when he might not have seemed to merit it, at least not from the view of someone who didn't know him well…

What made them so different from you?

You needed to know, because you _did_ kill them.

You wonder how many more of your former allies you would have to slay.

…

Next on your map is fort Merceus. You have no need for traps or infiltration as you did when you came here with the church's troops only – Dimitri actually had enough soldiers but a head-on assualt.

Mercedes seems oddly apprehensive, but you can't suss out why. She keeps deflecting the discussion towards _you_ – aren't you working too hard? Aren't you taking on too many responsibilities, just because others ask you?

Before you met her and the others, you would honestly not have known what do do at all without your father telling you what the next point on the agenda was.

You're on edge the whole time, waiting for the javelins of light to drop – but they never do, and that perhaps unnerves you most of all. Something's going on here, under the surface, that you _still_ don't quite understand.

Instead of getting saved by the Death Knight's whims, you actually defeat him, and have all the time in the world to take possession of the fortress, all the time in the world for Mercedes' to unclasp the enemy's skull-like mask, revealing the long honey-colored hair of… Jeritza von Hrym? You'd all suspected that, just from finding Manuela in his room, and the timing of his dissapearance – but that's not the name Mercedes calls out while she kneels at his side -

"Emile!"

Emile? Her brother? The one her mother wasn't able to bring with her when he fled her monstrous second husband who only wanted them for their crest? The one she spoke of when she reminisced about the few tolerable bits of her childhood? The one she had sometimes compared to Felix?

That's right. Mercedes _was_ originally from the Empire.

Under circumstances like that, it was not too hard to believe that her once sweet little brother would have grown up to be a twisted person…

You recall that bunch of monastery children who refused to believe that Jeritza could have been a bad guy, mentioning that he had taught them swordplay – some might have said them same about Dimitri if they had seem him how he was none too long ago.

Your victory tastes of Ashes.

You thought the empire was just a bunch of ruthless conquerors, but they seem as convinced of their righteousness as you.

Heck, you thought the Death Knight was just a whimsical madman, but as it would turn out, even he has a sort of tragic backstory behind him.

You keep an eye on the exits and make sure to keep the possibility of evacuation in the back of your mind, but the flying projectiles never come.

You feel this overwhelming heaviness weighing on your back, the dire awareness of how complex this world is and how treacherous its ground is to act upon.

But at least, you've won.

There is next to nothing between your troops and the capital now.

You've got the emperor cornered – very soon, you'll be able to put an end to this conflict and there will be no more bloodshed, and then, hopefully, the peace that comes after will convince you all that it all was worth it.

When you speak about this to Dimitri, he finds it only right that any fighting should be painful lest we forget how valuable each life is and become like to our enemies…

Because, he says, each life is precious – even that of someone like Edelgard.

Even after learning that the woman that would have been their only connection was most likely a traitor, he still considered her his sister.

He said that he wanted to accept her, 'like his people did for her', but what he wishes for might not be what she want…

…

But you know how Dimitri is. _Of course_ he wants to talk to her. Even _he_ thinks it a fool's errand. A matter of principle. Felix might once have called it ego.

Ultimately, Dimitri doesn't like conflict, the feeling that he has to detach himself from his human compassion… even less so now that he knows fully how much that can be a temptation for him.

He's willing to have peace with anyone who's willing to have peace with him – that worked with Claude, because he was willing to buy peace at any price he could stomach.

Edelgard, however, is a different matter…

Still, standing there before Dimitri, looking into his earnest blue eye, it's hard not to get swept up in his urgency of feeling.

His heart is so full of it that it's contagious.

He must be thinking of this little girl he knew long ago – you're thinking of the young woman you used to have tea with, the one you thought you knew, the one you used to believe in -

You don't even spend a secong wondering which answer to pick.

You're sure she'll agree to speak with you.

You sure she can't want this waste…

You counsel Dimitri to treat with her.

...

Dimitri tells you that he wants to understand why she did this, what drives her forward, what her lilac eyes believe in.

He's serious about it, as surely as he knows how good intentions can drive you to uglyness.

But the answer to those questions might have been a whole lot closer than Enbarr all along.

You remember Petra talking about that pamphlet she got sent, complete with a letter asking her to join up.

There had been many papers like that, scattered everywhere. You don't know how her copyist got them all to look so similar to each other, or how she even produced such a large amount in secret.

You saw some when Seteth ordered you to gather them all up and dispose of them but back then you didn't pay it any mind – you were told she was just claiming whatever was convenient to her, slandering a force for good.

This time around Dimitri ordered them all burnt and forbade anyone to look at them, the very sight of him enraged him back when he considered Edelgard to be evil made flesh.

Now of course he knew that the world was more complex, not all evil had the same root even if it aligned – there had been Arundel, there had been Patricia, the Kingdom's own corrupt nobles, and only _then_ there was Edelgard.

In the end it was Sylvain of all people who turned out to have a stray copy. He always was a lot more intellectual than he thought, too cynical to believe much of its promises but just cynical enough to believe many of the accusations.

You understand right away why he held on to the paper - his thoughts on the events in Duscur certainly proved him to be one who looked beyond the surface and the common wisdom when it came to politics, you could also see this in his attempts to educate himself about sreng. But you'd also heard him speaking with real fear of what might happen if the church pocketed the relic that his family had relied upon -

And this text was full of horror stories regarding the wrongdoings of the church, overreach corruption, abuse of power, cover-ups not unlike what happened to Christophe… but were they supposed to believe this from one who had herself conspired with the enemy and deceived them all? Wouldn't she just claim whatever was convenient and got her what she want? It's the talk about what she wants that gives you pause, and brings you all the way back to that conversation long ago, when she won your respect as a visionary of sorts – a world without crests… No wonder Sylvain couldn't throw away the paper. Dimitri had certainly acknowledged that there was overreach, arrogance and obsession, but he said also that the nobility and their power were necessary to keep the order. Heck, he probably said this thinking of his friend, knowing how much the Lance of Ruin had contributed to holding the northern march.

If Edelgard was going to claim that everyone else was just fine with the status quo she was certainly talking out of her ass. So the difference between them would have been in the means of accomplishing that – There was no need for war, said the King, no need to tear down cherisched traditions that have existed for a long time and for good reason – instead what's needed is that the ones at the top do their job as intended. That the nobles should actually be noble, that they should actually protect and serve their subjects not reign capriciously. The world should not be torn down, but restored to its rightful path, by the rightful king, basically. You can certainly see Dimitri being such a virtuous ruler – Lorenz probably believes this too, that's why he joined your side so easily.

Edelgard had supporters, too. Many of them. Brave, passionate, death-defying – in a sense, what they think is much much more important than what _she_ thinks.

All along you had opposed her because, as Flayn put it, the people certainly didn't want to have their lives upended and spent for some abstract ideology. Because, as Dimitri said, she was tyrant forcing the weak to submit to her strength.

Even if one doubted if she ever truly meant to grant these promises, this here was what her followers had wanted; Nay, didn't you hear that she brought the corrupt nobles to heel even during the last five years?

All along you've been fighting people like Lonato, or Christophe. People who had legitimate gripes with the church. People who _want_ to get rid of the nobility. Who are you to tell them that they should let themselves be ruled over? But you have supporters too. The kingdom and the Alliance had supporters, even when you stayed out of the fighting and stuck to the church.

Perhaps it's simply not so easy to define something like "the will of the people" - they weren't a monolith, there were hundreds of thousands of them… but there ought to be only one right solution.

Even so, no voice from the heavens would come and tell you.

Your father wasn't here, Sothis was gone, and even if you were to save Rhea you were no longer sure if her words should be followed.

You're a warrior. You don't know large-scale politics. You're not sure if you can confidently say which way to do this is actually best.

You didn't use to get why everyone was so obsessed with crests, but that was easy for you to say, seeing that you got a rare legendary one – though you never knew it, never cared.

Still, can you truly say that you have no dog in this fight? You wouldn't be in your current position if you couldn't wield the sword of the creator. Dimitri's the Prince because his father's older brother had no crest. By all accounts that uncle of his was a useless man but what's to say that he wasn't like Miklan? That he simply turned out that way because of how he was treated.

It's not like simply handing the crown to the eldest child was that much more logical than doing it based on crests. At least crests had actually something to do with ones' fighting prowess unlike birth order, but you doubt that you'd see people being thrown away left in right for being a younger sibling -

Sylvain probably put it best when he said that only the aftermath would decide which of them had been in the right, when the victors put down the history books.

As you rack over your brains over that paper in preparation for the parlay, it starts to make way too much sense in the dim candle light. Your eyes ache in the dusty darkness, and at least you admit to yourself what you'd been denying for a very long time… perhaps Dimitri wasn't the only one who had rejected those who betrayed him because he feared what he might do if he allowed himself to feel his feelings in full – strange that this would ever be a concern that _you_ of all people would have to worry about. Maybe all this time you have focussed so much on Dimitri's problems in order to avoid your own doubts and your own growing uncertainties.

But now that Dimitri himself had posed the question of whether Edelgard could be righteous… now that you've _allowed_ yourself to consider it, now that he, sincere as ever and so full of feeling, had openly bared the source of his doubts to his friends like Edelgard never could have, you've run out of places you can hide from this.

Dimitri isn't the only one. You… liked her, once. She was special to you. You felt an affinity to her. You _know_ it wasn't an illusion, just like you know that she's most definitely going to show up to that damn parlay.

You didn't want to admit that you felt that you had something in common with her – that you liked a 'demon' like her, an enemy of everything. With the kingdom people you felt like you really belonged – just you, Byleth, not the Vessel of the goddess – but there's still the side of you that is different, the one that got you mistaken for a cold, heartless sort of person at first.

All the times Edelgard said she lamented making a foe out of someone who was so similar to her, someone who could have understood her… you felt that. You felt that as much as she did.

You don't want to destroy her any more than Dimitri does.

She's not a demon at all. She never was. You can't believe it, no matter _what_ she is or _how_ she came to be. Sometime long ago, she must have been an innocent girl that Dimitri played with – just like Jeritza used to be.

What you're going to fight now is nothing but a sad, tragic product of this cruel unfair world. A simple destroyer coalesced from all the injustice, a mere consequence; She would not be wreaking

But what can you do? You can't let her rampage through the land like a wildfire.

…

But a wildfire is not what meets you in the field, flanked by only Hubert, who is very not impressed. He probably invited himself along, you can tell that he considers this a waste of time.

The emperor is… unreadable. Calm. Stoic.

Not frenzied or tragic at all but icy and firm.

Her capital is surrounded, yet she doesn't waver, doesn't betray a single sliver of weakness.

She speaks in resolute, practiced words, each inflection deliberately chosen:

She continues to make a terrifying amount of sense –

"It may be hard to believe, but this is the path that leads to the fewest casualties in the end. Don't you see?

The longer we took to revolt, the more victims this crooked world would have claimed. I weighed the victims of war against the victims of the world as it is now, and I chose the former. I believe that I have chosen the best path. The only path.

That is what I have devoted by life and my power to do."

There's no hesitation or uncertainty in her voice at all. She believes this like she believes the sky is blue, like she knows it in her bones. She sounds so much like the person you got to know at the academy – you can't deny now that she existed. Your disciple; Your friend; Your confidant.

You're not facing a greedy tyrant spouting self-serving rationalizations.

You definitely get what she means, because you have experienced a little bit more of this world more.

You think of everyone back at the camp – Sylvain, Mercedes, Dedue, Ingrid… So many of them suffered because of corrupt nobles and obsession with crests.

You can definitely see why her classmates would support that even if most of them were nobles themselves – they never liked the lives they were forced into. And one needn't ask why Dorothea would be interested in that…

But Dimitri isn't having it – this cold, sweeping calculation… and who can really blame him?

You know him well enough now to guess exactly what he must be thinking. It is obvious on his face: Of everyone who died in the war, and why exactly it was _their_ turn to die for the greater good. Why did it have to happen in their lifetimes, ruin their lives in particular. He must be thinking of their unheard screams -

and asking who exactly gave Edelgard the right to decide this.

"_Someone_ has to take action and put a stop to this world's endless, blood-stained history!"

Oh Dimitri… that's a fine thing to believe in, individual action. Personal virtue is admirable and important, but should the order of the land really depend on whether people feel like being virtuous and listening to others?

There were many things Edelgard didn't know, like how Dimitri had spent the last years, how he had seen many things in hidden away in desolate slums, but she was right about one thing: Dimitri was a prince. Not everyone in the slums had Gilbert trying to find them and give them an army.

Wasn't his own father virtuous? Did he not get killed because the larger corrupt system would not let him get away with reform?

Sure it would be nice if everyone could just band together and agree on what do do – but first, they would have had the opportunity to do so, and that was simply not the case. Don't we all make our choices in the context of a system, of circumstances, that can make it costly to be virtuous and easy to get away with corrupt actions? In a setup with blatant loopholes for the abuse of power, _someone_ will always take advantage of it...

The conversation never gets to concrete policy. They get hung up on the abstracts. Dimitri's getting emotional. He's made up his mind.

He no longer blames her for things she didn't know, but he's still very fixed in this idea that he has of her, of someone who is definitely stronger than him.

Someone who got over some childhood crush better than he did, who pushes all feelings aside like things to be stepped on.

But it is Edelgard who is the first to give up on the meeting – like she always thought… like she told you as early as when she introduced herself, it can't be helped if no one understands.

She's determined to walk her path regardless, alone if she has to. To her, that would make no more sense than to keep praying in vain for liberation. – You've seen already that she would keep going even if there were no one else beside her.

Then Dimitri does something that is only right but also a little bit cruel. He won't be denied this last bit of catharsis – you're aware how much he needs it.

_That_ breaks through Edelgard's reserve at last. She stares, seems off-balance for a moment; The glare Hubert shoots them is something to behold.

But without doubt, she does recognize the small blade that Dimitri holds out to her.

She didn't seem to have made the connection before this very moment.

A she smiles, a little bit broken.

Dimitri was probably convinced – and even you almost feared – that she would be petty about this. Say that she never cared to begin with, that it was forever ago, mock his soft open heart.

She is, and does, the exact opposite of that.

She doesn't hide, or deny, that he was important to her, at the time, that knowing him helped her to get through whatever it was that made her refer to herself as someone who was long dead.

She gives belated thanks -

And you wonder, what exactly did they do to her?

What was it that followed her, into those uneasy dreams?

You don't know about that little girl Dimitri used to know, but then again you never knew her – but as for the person you met at the academy, she's still alive, at least no less alive than _you_ can claim to be with your unmoving piece of rock for a heart – and she's _turning to leave_.

...

There will be no surgical strike this time.

Hardly anyone here has memories of Enbarr – Flayn is just another student this time. The people of Faerghus are tired and worn out, they want to end all of this before their resources are spent.

Dimitri of course insists that there will be no pillaging or needless destruction, but you'll be taking the city in a full-on assault -

You know better than to expect its revival.

After the last time, it's so full of memories, familiar places… and faces that had once stood beside you. They don't know that, but regardless, none of them are happy to fight you.

It tears at your soul.

Caspar, bless his heart, actually believed that you and Edelgard would be able to come to an understanding. But he's from a warrior clan. He knows what awaits him.

Linhard, in his last moments, laments that he had to live in such a dismal time.

Dorothea only sees your being at odds as a confirmation that _your_ side must be in the wrong, that it's the _church_, and not Edelgard, who is cruelly making you fight.

Then there's Hubert. Hubert's almost a comfort. He doesn't curse and he doesn't cry.

He doesn't buy Dimitri's turnabout one bit – makes sense that someone like him wouldn't put stock in redemption or sudden epiphanies: "Here comes the Savior King with his hands stained red… "

Trying to talk him into standing aside only nets Dimitri the name of silver-tongued liar.

The fight is ugly. You've seen Dimitri hack through enemies like butter, but if he's got one weakness, it's probably magic.

"This is not your path to tread! You fools don't even know what you're doing! Those who know nothing can understand nothing. Ignorant you have lived, and ignorant you shall die!"

You don't die.

Dimitri takes him out in one single hit – it was over the moment he got the mage within the reach of his lance.

Once more, you leave him on the palace stairs.

This time you don't ask the question that you posed to Seteth – You know that Dimitri doesn't want to kill Edelgard any more than you do, but you also know beyond doubt that he could _never_ walk the same path.

The captain of the palace guards in a surprise – So much, even _Shamir_ hesitates to loose the arrow she'd already nocked without thinking: "I cannot bring myself to kill you... You're a princess of Brigid. A hostage of the Empire."

"That was the truth in the past, but it is a different truth now. I am...the will of the emperor!"

How differently the winds of fate have tossed her about this time. Edelgard's on the defensive. There is nothing more to be gained from allying with her. Petra could probably have left if she wanted – but it seemed that she, too, had become a true believer this time around.

She had no reason to want anything to do with the old regime, and you've seen that she very much has the courage to stand up against it, if that's what she thought she must be doing.

But Edelgard had called her operation a 'revolt'.

She doesn't hold back either. She uses every dirty trick she can pull off so as to have a chance against at you, and by sheer determination, she manages to keep you a good while, before she was doomed to breathe her last on foreign soil.

None of your companions have any context for the dark mages that jump out of the woodwoorks as you proceed deeper inside, or for the paroles they shout, though you have seen their like before.

It wouldn't hurt to thin their numbers.

…

Not long ago, Dimitri had said something about how they must respond if it was the emperor's wish to go down fighting, as if he were doing her a favor.

But as soon as he sights her, all he has left is disgust.

Is that what all the research on demonic beasts was meant for?

But… how? Why?

This never happened last time. Was that down to what meager influence you had?

These attacks just keep coming, incredibly fast, straight through the walls, time and space and blackest magic wrapped around withered black carapace.

Red lights glint in pools of black - and _of course_ she has wings.

Why would she want an existence like that, from which she had stripped away all meaning?

Her body, her mind, her heart, her very soul – she had jettisoned it all, fading like a footprint on the beach.

Except that she made straight for Dimitri, the commander, the one whose death would end this, as if you weren't even reflected in her eyes. The chain of your sword intercept her path, and then…

"Facing you, I grow weak..."

That doesn't even sound like a girl's voice anymore, or a human voice.

It pierces you to your dephts.

Even like this. Even _like this-_

You stand frozen in the headlights longer than she does. Were it not for Dimitri's timely intervention, she would have skewered you with her claw.

Though she might have dispensed with everything else, she still has _will_. And that, she holds on to to the end, even when everything else had crumbled away all around her.

…

You were never anything other than alarmed when you noticed that razor-thin smile on her lips.

Who knows how coherent she really was, if she missed Dimitri's neck.

He just… reacted, as one might expect from a lifetime of fighting.

Your response might have been the same.

There's nothing more you can do here, so you leave.

Of course you're tempted to look back, but when you notice Dimitri as much as beginning to do the same, you're quick to grab his hand and get him out of here.

The last thing he needs is one more ghost haunting him. Let the undertakers deal with that mess.

At least you can count on Dimitri to make sure that she gets properly buried this time around.

With him to look out for, you can't afford to look back.

…

You wait for that letter.

Like the javelins of light, it never arrives.

You don't find any more dark mages in the palace, not since you've struck down their leader.

They must have discarded their broken tool once she ceased to be of use to them.

How typical of those bastards!

Dimitri sets about evacuating the remaining citizens and establishing a chain of command throughout the large territories that have now somehow fallen into his lap.

Still no letter.

You know their hideout was somewhere in Goneril territory, but you doubt that you could find it by memory.

Rhea's found at some point, severely weakened as usual, but alive. As there is still no letter to be found, she does not go about exerting herself. She seems satisfied to yield her position to you and settle down somewhere quiet to recuperate. The place she chooses are the ruins of Zanado. Catherine goes with her. Last time, she was naturally upset over Rhea's death, but then she marched off to marry Shamir and become something of a local folk hero, making a life of her own.

Now she remains in the arrangement that had thus far brought out all the worst in her. She reminds you of the you from the previous world.

But it's what she wants, isn't it?

You don't expect that you'll be visiting Rhea strictly more often than what is expected of you.

Dimitri prepares for his coronation. He insists that you officiate and it takes all of the former blue lion house to convince Gilbert to accept to participate as his shieldbearer, but it works out.

Gilbert… no, Gustave actually offers to pledge his services to you, in case you ever wanted your own right-hand man, you suppose. You could probably use one as archbishop. You'll need one when the letter comes.

Time passes. You scour the church archives for evidence of corruption but nothing much remains in terms of evidence. Even so you make sure to get yourself new Cardinals.

Dimitri, as expected, turns out to be a great king. The people love him, and why wouldn't they? He's a likeable figure, noble but never condescending, very empathetic, always an open ear for the little guy… the fervor about him already portents that he will be remembered for the ages right along ancestors such as Loog or Blaiddyd himself, if not held to be greater than them. He's viewed as a bringer of peace, and you are getting called the 'Guardian of Order'.

It helps that he is very motivated by his past failures. You'll have to conspire with Dedue, Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix to make sure he takes a nap once in a while.

He couldn't wait to set to work, and just like he always hoped to, he ends up doing quite a bit for the poor and the downtrodden. The rights of minorities, too, were always an issue that had been dear to his heart. Tapestries show him playing with little duscur children – and look at that! He even got _you_ on there, with your great big archbishop collars, since he argued that he couldn't have done it without you. Somehow that feels much better than having the whole mural to yourself.

But of course Dimitri always saw himself as a servant of the people, and his reforms certainly reflect that. Fodlan becomes what later historians might have termed a 'constitutional monarchy'.

Sylvain made peace with Sreng, and on top of that, there's some Prince Khalid from Almyra suing for peace and asking to bring a delegation.

All in all, it seems like a golden age is just around the corner for Fodlan and the world.

There can be no doubt that this is a _much_ better outcome than the last time, unless you were the sort to insist on wearing a crown – which you aren't. You've got more than enough on your plate with the archbishop job, and here you thought being a professor was a lot of work.

Many lives were lost, but compared to the mutual annihilation of the last time, it's very much a bargain – Both Faerghus and the Alliance took casualties in the war, especially the former, but they weren't utterly destroyed. The Alliance civilians would have been nearly unscathed as only Derdriu saw any direct fighting, even if many of their soldiers were lost at Gronder.

The Kingdom had suffered much, but it had been rebuilt greater and better.

You don't know where he is, but this time you know for sure that Claude lives. He's probably still scheming his schemes somewhere out there, doing whatever being the Sovereign Duke got in the way of. And Dimitri lives! Dedue lives, and all of their classmates, and hey, even Lorenz.

Besides, Dimitri had not just reestablished the order in Fodlan, he had improved it, made it fairer -

And you get to actually be _part _of it, not a bargain basement standin for Sothis or Rhea.

There's only one problem: There's still no letter, and at this point you're beginning to consider that it will never arrive. Hell if you know what Hubert might have been thinking, it came out of the left field even the last time.

You've lost people you cared about, so you would not say that everything is perfect, but it's good enough: As far as it concerns the world directly around you, your immediate surroundings, the people you personally know, everything is good.

It's not just Dimitri and the other Blue Lion students who got to live – Even Gilbert, and Judith, and Rhea, whom you don't want much to do with but don't wish any evil upon either. Since he wasn't holding down Faerghus this time (since you liberated it) it's even possible that Caspar's father might be alive.

If you had chosen Dimitri's house the first time around, you didn't think that going back to the beginning would ever have occurred to you, except perhaps to see if you could somehow save some of the other students – Maybe you could try to recruit some of them into the Blue Lion house? Or better yet, extent the invitation for the class reunion to all of them.

You didn't expect Edelgard or Hubert to show up, but as for everyone else… you already knew that the other Eagles might do it. They did back when you chose their house!

But then what about the remaining Agarthans? Had you known nothing about them, this story would have looked very complete, like something straight out of a heraldic tale – the heroic rightful king had fought off the evil conqueror and peace was restored. But all this time, other forces had been pulling the strings in the background.

You had certainly broken their networks of contacts, disrupted their plans, thinned their numbers and killed many of their leaders, but there was still _a whole town's worth_ of them out there – and they had lurked in the shadows for centuries. This certainly wasn't the first such scheme they'd ever hatched. There was no way that this was anything other to them than a mere setback.

It was then that you began to understand the impossible decision that was being asked of you.

You had a choice between a scenario in which the world as you knew it would be largely reduced to rubble in exchange for vanquishing the long-term threat, and another where most of the people you had grown close to and knew by name could live in peace and prosperity, but at the cost of leaving the bigger picture unresolved.

Fodlan would have peace while Dimitri reigned, and most likely, during the rule of his immediate descendants as well, but by then, their enemies might have regrouped, and there would be no guarantee that this whole twisted game wouldn't start up right from the beginning, coming back to plague future generations…

Clearly this couldn't be it. There _had_ to be a third option somewhere.

If only you'd have gone down this path first, you would never have seen the cracks in your understanding of this world, and you would have been very happy here. You might have lived like a normal person, maybe even married, insofar as your duties as archbishop would leave you the time for it.

But now, the knowledge burned at the back of your mind – knowledge only you had.

Did that not make it your responsibility?

…

"Why does this still trouble you so? Have we not removed all of Cornelia's former accomplices?"

"Yes but there's got to be more of them. The one who passed as Thomas was sent in from an Alliance territory..."

"Are you sure that you're not neglecting your duties as archbishop over this?"

"Keeping the people of Fodlan safe is part of my duties… they were scheming to have you killed, you know. Like your father before you. Don't you think we should investigate more? Don't you want to know about that business with your stepmother-"

"It's strange to hear you say that, professor. You were the one who told me not to get hung up on old grudges and obsessions when I should be focused on ruling my kingdom."

You know very well why he's saying this. You know how difficult it was to him to get to a point where he could live with not knowing just so he could function. To push him further seems in bast taste – but in the end, _he's_ the one who can't let the matter rest:

"Assuming that you did discover them, somewhere in a hidden hideout. What would happen then? Wouldn't they respond to that? Wouldn't that just bring war across Fodlan once again, so soon after we've just recovered from the last one?"

"They'll do that anyway if they resurface."

"If they resurface, you and I will rise to meet them with our full strength."

"If we still live, you mean. If we're not old and grey by then. Shouldn't we want to take care of this while the ball is in our court rather than to keep kicking down the can to the future?"

"I think that, above all, our role is to preserve the peace we have _right now_ instead of jeopardizing the safety of our subjects for some hypothetical future – We might not be there, but others will. Just because our enemies could return, that does not mean that we'll be successful. We'll just have to keep having faith in the people, now, and in the future."

"You've matured." you say, with a smile, because it's true. He's technically older than you now, isn't he?

Dimitri is a good ruler, besides, he knows his limits now. When you've recognized them, the best you can do is focus on what you can do inside the sphere of your influence and accept what lies outside.

But you couldn't accept it. You had no right to claim that Shambhalla was outside your sphere of influence, because it wasn't. You had laid waste to it once before and freed Fodlan from it's threat forevermore. Not because it was your 'divine mission' or because you weren't allowed a life of your own, but because the Agarthans were _dangerous. _There's no way you could let them go unchecked, if such a thing was within your power.

The moment you conceive of that thought, you know that Dimitri would never forgive you, if you were to sacrifice this peaceful, orderly world as it is now where all his friends have their dreams realized and his family's legacy continued, all of it for the future or some better way or further knowledge that might or may not exist.

He would think you little better than Edelgard – Cold hearted and calculating, just a tyrant with power, one of the strong, forcing your decision on others because you have that power, Ashen Demon indeed. You can't say he would be wrong. Who put you in charge? Who are you to decide?

The chosen of the goddess? You never truly believed that the first time around.

Dimitri would count himself betrayed, and even if he did not remember this, _you_ would always know, every single time you spoke to him. You weren't even sure if you would truly be able to return to this outcome, if you did finally decide that it was the best you could get.

But the threat of Shambhalla and your memories of their evils burn in your mind… Remire, your father's death, even the massacre that claimed Dimitri's own parents.

If you acted, you might be judged guilty, but if you didn't, if you could have stopped their future evils but refused, did that not make it your responsibility as well?

As somebody once told you:

"Once you realize what you are capable of, there is no turning back."

Oh, but screw it. Duty be damned, you actually care about Dimitri and all your former students a lot more than you do about some possible future you would never seen. Maybe you could have made this decision without batting an eyelash before you came to Garreg Mach, but now -

Dimitri, sitting across from you, notices the change in your eyes long enough to look concerned, but he thinks of worry long before he would ever consider suspicion: "Professor?"

The frozen image of his soft, sincere face singes itself into the back of your eyeballs.

...

Your father probably wasn't expected to be tackled into a hug when he came to wake you up that morning.

Neither did he expect you to weep.

He's quite startled at that, actually, since he was expecting the version of you who had never known regret.

...

So, Claude. He said something about how he wished you had picked his class, and what he might have done then. Get answers, maybe. You'd like some of those yourself, so, you decide to take him up on his bargain. At least you'd find out what his idea for the future is, if it's any better – after all, you still haven't the slightest idea what his deal is. He's the biggest blank on your mental map, insofar as you're aware of, so choosing his house seems like the quickest way to remedy that.

As soon as you can manage, you dry your eyes and go find him.

…..

Congratulations, you have now made it through roughly 85% of this fic's sadness content!

You know that one episode of Star Gate where to escape from the humanoid replicatos they have to doublecross the one nice and innocent one? That's kinda the vibe I was going for at the end, that, or, "Sacrifice Chloe". I wanted all the routes to feel 'important' and like they were crucial experiences for Byleth even if they're not the 'final' outcome. I defs felt the need to acknowledge that AM lets you save the greatest number of _named_ characters that Byleth actually knows even if I personally find the other outcomes (other than SS) better in some regards.

While I'm sorry to have gotten sidetracked I'm kinda glad that I didn't finish this before Cindered Shadows and the revelations from the interview came out, because CS fits quite well into my plan for the narrative. Turns out like El was even righter than I already though she was, especially with the additional revelations from the interviews. Or that's my opinion anyways.


	6. Heretic

You are the famed warrior who was destined to take over your country at the dawn of a new era, and she is the one who will disrupt the status quo that preceded the upheavals from which you would emerge victorious.

_I look to you_

_Like a red rose_

_Seeking the sun_

_No matter where it goes_

….

Even on the way to the monastery, your father keeps casting worried glances at you and looking, at any juncture, to make sure of your well-being without making it incredibly obvious in front of a bunch of precious heirs and someone as… challenged in terms of nuance and discretion as Alois is.

You must acknowledge that he has every right to be confused.

The first time around, he'd remarked that he'd never seen you cry at all before -

Best not to think about it.

It seemed like just an observation then, but now, part of you wonders if he was doubting all along if you ever really responded to his love. You used to wander by yourselves, and so you were just you, just another odd duck in a band full of people with various reasons to leave their homes for a life of swinging the sword, but now that you've met more people and spent more time seeing how they respond to you, even reading how he described you in his diary, or knowing how even Dimitri misunderstood you at first -

You used to think that your father always understood you just fine, even explained to others to make allowances for you. But what he did because it was right and fair and the doubts he might secretly have felt are two pairs of shoes. You thought that if you do what people ask of you they can't doubt your intentions. You certainly wouldn't want to think that your father wouldn't know how important he is to you, for all you'd think that that was obvious, but, you're not sure what you failed to do to make this apparent.

He certainly didn't know what to make of you sobbing into his arms as a grown adult when you never even did so as a child, and much less how to parse that you went back to your usual composure so quickly and left the tent straight away as if you were expecting visitors, resolute and silent as if nothing happened.

It's hard enough to conceal the disorientation at finding your body how it used to be, when the divine power was only leaking out bit by bit instead of suffusing its whole substance. Muscle memory be damned, you can't go swinging your ordinary steel blade as if it were the sword of the creator, much less fire off a 'ruptured heaven'. You've got your own hair again, your own eyes – Like the last time, you find that you can't access your full power until you reach the point in time where Sothis originally granted it to you. Some quirk of the space-time continuum perhaps, a sort of failsafe so that you don't get cause and effect muddled beyond what you can untangle.

The upshot is that you almost stumbled when you rushed right out of bed without taking a moment to adjust. Though you suppose that it would ever harder to justify if you suddenly woke up with green hair.

The most you say to explain yourself is some some vague, noncommittal mumbling about how you 'dreamed about a war'. You might have said something like this before, you're not really sure, but you would surely have meant something different then – but you had to answer _something_, you know he doesn't like it when you pretend to be fine when you aren't. If your remaining time together is bound to be short, the least you can do is make it easy on him, make sue that he _knows-_

He lets off a little once he gets that answer, it probably makes things make a little more sense in his head. You've described your strange dreams to him before. You couldn't necessarily appreciate how he might be wondering if they had something to do with Rhea's meddling, or what it might mean for you to do something so uncharacteristic right before Alois stumbled upon the two of you and escorted you back to the monastery.

But unfair as it is, you have other things to worry about, like the house leaders. So far, you don't think your slip-up this morning made any difference: They seem as impressed with you as they've ever been, but you more than ever you notice the hints of intensity shining through beneath Dimitri's noble veneer, or the cold, analytic reserve underlying Edelgard's refined politeness.

She's an actual girl again, no carapace, no tendril, no eerie wilowy-fingers or cracked leathery blackness surrounding withered black lips – she's even wearing those ribbons again, there's still hints of youth softening her sharp triangular face.

You don't think it shows on your face very much, but it's hard to look at her, much less at Dimitri, well-groomed, neatly combed, with both of his eyes. You know he's forcing down whatever revulsion he felt at seeing you fight because he doesn't want to treat you differently, because he hopes that doing his best to accept others might make them overlook the taint he feels on his own soul, and you certainly don't want to give him any sort of wrong impression that might make him feel rejected, but how can you face him, when he doesn't know what you did, in that other world when he actually came to trust and accept him?

It's almost a relief that you're supposed to be focusing on Claude now.

Edelgard didn't tell you what she was planning but at the very least she was pretty upfront about trying to recruit you. Claude is certainly the extrovert of the bunch – he's much more approachable than Edelgard, and thoroughly lacks anything like Dimitri's stilted politeness. Even so, his intentions were no less blatant: If anything, he's downright irreverent, even to 'their royal highnesses', outright admitting his plans to rope you into his plans with casual impertinence. Though you suppose it makes sense: The nobles of the Leicester Alliance are pretty proud of their form of government: They bow to no King, but form a commonwealth or republic where all major decisions are voted on by a council of influential nobles, each representing their own region. Claude's future position was to be more like the chairman of a committee than that of an absolute rulers, and it was by no means certain – Even while teaching the other houses, you could not miss that Lorenz definitely had an eye out for his job, and you would soon learn that Hilda's brother was another viable candidate – the individual noble houses had traditional positions, but those could shift over time as the families themselves rose and fell in power – for example, Marianne's father had recently ascended to the highest council of five as his influence and wealth had grown, pushing out a house whose heirs had not possessed crests in generations. Claude's role, if he wished to keep him, would require him to be an actual politician, someone who could sway others with their charm and negotiate alliances to enforce what they want. To an extent, all rulers needed to do this, but Claude would need to be extremely aware of it. He certainly had all the ingredients to be a slimy politician par excellence, especially once he grew up to acquire that serious, masterful presence you'd seen from his older self.

After all, Alliance laws tend to be permissive and allow each of their subsidiary regions a lot of leeway to govern themselves, being designed to promote commerce, trade and manufacturing. As a result, merchants and artisans of plebeian backgrounds had a lot more influence there compared to the other two territories – In Faerghus, the populace was poor and the godess-given social order was absolute, and the Adrestian empire was extremely centralized despite its size, so that the technological advancement that came from its long history and distance from the church had mostly benefited the wealthy capital without touching the outer provinces – indeed, aside from Petra, every single Adrestian student you had gotten to know well was from the capital. The Golden Deer, by contrast, had the most commoners out of any of the houses.

Of course, the talk and the reality were two pairs of shoes: In the end, only the nobles got a vote, which meant that the vast majority of the populace didn't. And of the commoners in your class, most were merchants. Commoners without any money still didn't have very much to say – Leonie was the only genuine village peasant, and she had gone into debt to come here. But still, at least she _was_ here, the only commoner who had got here without any connections. Everyone else was either wealthy, or had connections to nobles, or had sweet-talked nobles into sponsoring them. Dedue was best friends with the prince. Ashe and Dorothea _used_ to be dirt poor, but then one got adopted and the other got famous.

But still, the presence of Ignatz, Rafael and Leonie might at least be proof that some things were at least _less worse_ in the Alliance. That could be a start – maybe, if you gave Claude a poke in the right direction, you could improve on that. At least, it might serve as a template based on which to improve the whole of Fodlan.

The biggest unknown in all this plan remains Claude himself. You've already seen beyond doubt that he's certainly going to be _competent _when he grows up, even if he looks like a mischievous party boy now. Heck, even his younger self always did have his more thoughtful moments. But is he trustworthy? Responsible? Is he really the sort of person who should be given the reins of Fodlan?

The last thing you want is another Edelgard. Sure, he supported you against the Empire once, but before that, he played nice and neutral for _five years_. Granted, the Alliance is smaller and more vulnerable… No. You know from your last attempt that this conflict is by no means as clear-cut as you once thought it was. From a pragmatic standpoint, you can see why someone would want to join with a church led by you but not with a roaring rampage of revenge spearheaded by Dimitri at his worst, or even how someone might back the empire without being completely evil, for example if they had a legitimate gripe with the church. From a more distant standpoint – cold as it may be – Dimitri and Edelgard might look like the heads of two warring factions neither of which looks particularly appealing. If you have your own, smaller holdings to protect, why not sit back as they smash each other's heads in?

But do these times truly call for such indiscriminate slimy methods, the sort of man who would fight you on Tuesday only to ally with you on Friday?

Then again, his actions, inconsistent and self-serving as they might have seemed, had without a doubt saved his people. If that's not what a good leader is supposed to do, then what is?

Still, there was that mysterious secret ambition of his to consider. What could be so grand that it might make_ ruling a country_ seem like drivel by comparison?

If there is any way to find out, it would probably involve getting close to him.

So – to the Golden Deer classroom you go.

The whole bunch turns out quite irreverent, not all so much as Claude, but – You're not sure how much they all believe in this institution except as a means to an end. it's a contrast of night-and-day compared to the Blue Lions.

You do take note that Claude makes a point to stress how his classmates are all from distinct backgrounds, each with their own colorful personality – that's a good value, at the core, but, as house leader, he's already that much of a politician: He's trying to cultivate a group identity or a brand image: The Golden Deer (TM). Perhaps it's a way to make up for the national unity that the Alliance itself doesn't quite have – the fact that so many of them are commoners means that they would not have been too involved with politics to begin with – no, even the nobles are all following their own pursuits, the territories themselves are a lot more independent.

You suppose that the Alliance's more decentralized federalism might also have it's downsides, out of the three factions they probably have the least centralized power and might be the least effective at pooling their resources. It's the smallest faction, surrounded on all sides and backed against the mountain range that severs Fodlan from the wilderness beyond – not the faction you would have chosen to begin with if your aim had been to win a war, and yet here you are, betting on a darkhorse.

…

This – This is worse than you feared.

You're not sure what you expected behind Claude's friendly facade, but as soon as you spend five minutes alone with him behind closed doors, the first thing he does is suggest various devious ways to cheat at the mock battle. He listens only out of idle curiosity for your plans, and even then only for so long as they keep working up better than whatever resourceful alternatives he has cooking.

The mask falls real fast, or at least the topmost layer.

You're regretting this much, much quicker than the other two.

He wears a taunting smirk that nothing can seem to wipe off his face while his eyes remain impenetrably analytical; Despite his more expressive front he is, in a way, much more impenetrable than Edelgard. With her it was a question of learning to read her, and that came pretty naturally to you anyways; On the occasions when her feelings did make their way from the depths to the surface, what emerged was often pure and without artifice.

But as for Claude, it's like everything he does is meant to pursue at least five constantly shifting objectives, carefully filtered through many layers of convection, thought you are fairly certain that 'shits and giggles' is always mixed in there with all the other assorted motivations.

Maybe his older self was so masterful that you forgot what a devious little gremlin he used to be.

One thing common to both versions of him is certainly the way they stride around like they own the place. He's certainly not someone who just _happened_ to _tumble _into a position of leadership.

Still, you suspect you'll be seeing a lot of that impish little grin and that infuriating little gap in his eyebrow.

This persists straight through the battle; He might be listening to your orders for now, but that doesn't mean he can't take a crack at trying to fluster the other house leaders into lowering their guard. "Woo, a real life princess!" "Admit it, your highness, you got a thing for Edelgard~"

You suppose it's that obvious, though really, Claude has no idea.

Still, it mostly doesn't work, Dimitri is too serious to be dragged into any debauchery.

Claude has a lot more luck at getting banter out of Edelgard.

Meanwhile, your attention was on making sure that Lorenz doesn't run ahead on his own like he did every single time that you've been through this same contest with slightly different variations. (You needn't have worried. This time, it's Ferdinand who breaks formation)

The first time you did this, you were actually concerned about doing this right and living up to everyone's expectations. Now you know the drill by heart – it helps that you've got to know every single one of your opponents intimately enough to know all their weaknesses. You worked hard to help them overcome it after all. You feel a little bad about using that knowledge against them, but your plan requires that you keep this job and get in Claude's good graces, and that means you need to win this again. Best not to think about what might happen if you end up having to fight them again. It was bad enough when the greater part of them were relative strangers, but now they've all been your friends and comrades, apart from the ones you're set to know this year.

It's certainly an opportunity to get a feel for this all-new roster of yours. You took four more besides yourself and Claude. Lysithea, Leonie and Lorenz eagerly volunteered themselves, but though you took Hilda and Marianne on the assumption that their inclusion should even out the team, they seem amusingly surprised every time you actually expect them to… do anything. Left to their own devices, they'll just keep "out of the way" and talk. Well, to be honest, it's mostly Hilda talking _at_ Marianne, but you think she means well. Despite her laziness and interest in fashion and gossip she has yet to display the typical symptoms of Mean Girl Syndrome; It seems like she's legitimately looking to befriend the quiet girl. You often saw them standing around together, in the past, or well, rather the future from now, and that's wonderful – you just wish they'd go form a wonderful friendship outside of class.

Still, your strategy works out.

First time around you were sized up with waiting, expectant eyes. Dimitri, for his part, simply did as you ordered – he generally tends to follow authorities, that one. Not Claude. It's been a long while since the last time and it felt even longer than it actually was, but you're still extremely certain that none of the others gave you this much questions and backtalk as you were discussing your tactics. You suppose that as a teacher – insofar as you still think of yourself as one after having been a monarch and an archbishop and whatnot... you should be glad to find yourself to have eager, involved students. But right now, the questions make you sweat to justify your reasoning without resorting to claiming that you've seen the future. Lucky for you, Claude seemed to decide to take a chance on you, or maybe, the chance to observe you.

You sense that you'll have to be careful with that one. He's _sharp_ and he's sure got his eyes on you, moreover, you have no idea how far he should be trusted. But seeing how little gets past _him_, that might actually incline him to believe that you simply deduced your ideas from what you saw of the other two's performance against the bandits. At least, he buys it for now. You're exceedingly fortunate to have been born with such a natural pokerface.

At the celebration that follow your obligatory win, he seems friendly enough. He makes a point to stress the importance of teamwork – in that sense he's maybe not so different from the others.

Also, apparently, he cooks! Even _if_ the cheese was stolen from the dining hall.

It's a solid life skill, as Claude himself points out when you inquire, but it's not necessarily one you would expect from the heir to a wealthy port city. You might perhaps have expected the preference for lavish spices because of his territory's flourishing trade, but you don't think you've ever tasted them in this sort of combination.

You certainly couldn't picture the other two house leaders serving their whole house a homecooked feast – or being that much for partying in general. The Golden Deer appear to be the resident party animals of Garreg Mach… with a few pointed exceptions. Poor Marianne keeps sticking to her corner or staying close to Hilda, and it seems that all the additional chill everyone else got was deducted from Lysithea's portion. Despite her rather telling touchiness on the subject of her relative youth, she actually seems pretty serious and motivated – you should have no problem with her in your class and she'll probably be a joy to instruct, but… there's almost something hectic or urgent to her desire to prove herself, enough to make you wonder whether there might be a deeper reason beyond a simple interest in academics or a perceived need to compensate for her youth-

Then there's Leonie. She seems laid-back enough in the company of your classmates but unfortunately for you, you seem to be the main exception to that.

Lorenz, Rafael and Hilda are having a heck of a time though, eah in their own ways, and Ignatz at least finds the togetherness comforting, though he seems a little shy and uncertain still – that one will probably need some friendly nudging. Marianne is shaping up to be another obvious problem child. She seems a bit overwhelmed with life in general, whether it's maintaining her room or even doing her hair. You don't get the impression that she's very used to being around people. There's clearly a sort of backstory here as well.

Both her and Lysithea present evident unsolved mysteries, as if Claude wasn't enough…

As soon as the others have cleared out of the room he seems to want to cut a deal or, at least made sure he's asked to help you out and nicely do his part as house leader.

One moment, the smooth charming party boy makes the smirkey gremlin look like an illusion, the next, he shows up again, subtly inviting you to be his partner in crime.

After seeing him with the others you don't even think it's necessarily fake, or, all facade, but – it's method acting in which his actual personality is helpfully employed. It's probably not that he doesn't actually want to be friends with you, but that's not _all_ he wants, and he knows that you know it. You can never quite shake the feeling that you're being deliberately disarmed and constantly analyzed, like he's subtly letting you know things here and there and observing how you respond.

Even when you have no reason to doubt his words you're left wondering _why_ he's telling them to you. You can see why others would mistrust him. Having seen his deeds in the future you're inclined to think that he's probably not a bad person, but even still, he's someone with a certain intelligence and excellent survival instincts; you simply know that you'd do well to remember that, aware that, in a pinch, he probably wouldn't hesitate to use them.

He says _one_ interesting thing, intriguing both in itself and as the first possibly clue to the mystery behind him – something about how he didn't necessarily grow up in the lap of luxury, and how you got that in common – at very least, he appreciates having an instructor who's had some actual practical life experience out on the street. That speaks for him, but - Strange claim, for the grandson of a Duke. For all you know, he might be making this up to make himself seem more similar to you, to get you to trust him.

...

In any possible situation, the first thing Claude ever does is start thinking.

What are your enemies after? What's the matter with the relics? If the rock around it is rather dull-colored, why is it called the 'red canyon'?

You understand why some might think him callous. When you go put down Lonato's rebellion, he seems way more interested in Catherine's famed weapon and shuts down Ignatz' understandable discontentment by referring to the further damage that the rebels might have done, had they been allowed to keep maundering through the countryside.

At first one might suppose him even more unflappable than Edelgard once you came to expect his friendly facade. But his feelings, as you would come to learn, simply set in later. They tend to hit him with some delay; Maybe he simply needs some more time and space to process them, once his whirling mind is no longer occupied by pressing questions or matters of survival.

In those moments, you at times find him surprisingly quiet and thoughtful, pensive even, though you suppose that you've glimpsed some of this from talking with him around the monastery throughout the passing months, and certainly with his older self.

Dubious as his intentions with you might be, he sees no use in denying them. It's almost refreshing to have that out of the way, really. As long as you've been here – and especially since your crest and your ability to wield a legendary relic came to light – people have looked at you and seen power.

Rhea had her own plans for you, Seteth and the others were looking to you to be the church's savior figure, Dimitri feared you, at first (and seeing how you've deserted him out of cold logical calculation, he might have been right to), though he acted friendly out of obligation, and Edelgard of course tried to rope you into whatever she was scheming behind your back.

At least Claude schemes to your face.

You're not sure how much of it as convenient act, or, tactical ingratiating, but at least you kind of know what he thinks when he's being friendly to you. He's very much looking for a partner in crime, yes, but he clearly likes being let in, or whenever he gets anything out of you. You're not sure that It would be safe to say that he wants to be your _friend_, but he's certainly looking to make you an _ally. _He's offering to look out for you, to make himself indispensable though useful hints, for all that he's clearly looking to be answered in return. It helps that you're not being singled out like it was with Catherine or Cyril at first – Claude probes just about _everyone_ for information, even his other classmates. It's like the first thing he thinks of when he meets a new person is to figure out a way to extract their secrets, background and personal history.

You're simply no different _\- _As he's under the impression that you're a newcomer and not wrong in suspecting that your upbringing was somewhat sheltered one way that he does that is by offering to show you the ropes around the monastery, though he stops soon once he realizes that you… 'catch on quick' as he explains it. It's not like he could know that you're doing this for the third time now. You suspect that by the time the dance competition comes up he'll have staked out all the good dancers in your class.

If anything it pays to keep him close – astute, seasoned and unattached to conventional notions, he's not the worst guide to the world around you that you could have chosen.

If your goal is to get a broader understanding of what's going on here, choosing him certainly wasn't a mistake.

He tends to make a point to be where there are secrets to be learned so you learn quite a lot of things just by sticking close to him. You find out quite a lot of things about handy, helpful factoids about all of his classmates. You learn that his frequent twirling of his arrows is not just a gestture of overconfidence but an actual exercise to keep the tendons of his hand stretched and limber. You learn that you encounter with the three house leaders was not, as he once put it (quite uncharacteristically) a wink of the heavens, but that he ran your way not just to flee but to get help, having noticed numerous hoof- and bootprints on the road.

You come to partake in his disconcerting pool of knowledge concerning poisons and other means of assassination, though what you find on him, or see him fiddling with never approaches the lethality of the sorts of implements you were wont to find in Hubert's possesion.

As a teacher you would have to commend him, really, for all that he loves partying and mischief he is always learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge. You've been told often that you're adept at acquiring new capabilities but you've only really done what was required of you for particular goals such as teaching your lessons; Claude instead appears driven to master all that he can; In all your time at the monastery, it never occurred to you to wonder why your father is always kept so busy until Claude points it out. In all the time that you've been wielding the sword of the creator, you never heard that legend about how it was once used to split a mountain...

...

You might be beginning to understand somewhat.

You can't yet say that you've uncovered any secrets, this would already have been known to most members of the Alliance already and in and of itself it poses more questions than it answers, but it's a puzzle piece that was certainly missing from _your_ picture of the whole situation:

Turns out that Claude had only recently been recognized as the official heir of house Riegan.

Taking that into account, it's all the more impressive that he had deduced so much information about his classmates when you met him: He could only have met them recently.

It also explains why Lorenz is so goddess darned suspicious of him; It's not just a matter of tact, prejudice or callousness, when you really look at it he's got every reason to be suspicious. He's actually something of a serious politician under all his vanity and as such he must be concerned about his beloved Alliance falling into the hands of a complete nobody stranger who came out of nowhere unexplained. You like Claude but you must admit that his conduct can't have helped matters here – to be fair being faced with that kind of suspicion would probably explain his wariness – but still it looks all too convenient that the previous Duke and his daughter just so happened to 'disappear' just before he turned out like a gift from the heavens just as House Riegan was despairing for lack of heirs. In theory, there shouldn't be a doubt about his identity given that crest of his, but the nature of his blood did little to explain the contents of his head. If you take his devious nature on the one hand, and his obvious interest in his grandfather's relic on the other…

You can see the sort of conclusion Lorenz might have drawn.

But could Claude really be the sort of person who would murder not just his own uncle but an innocent girl his age?

That seems to go much too far, and it's too heavy an accusation to throw around without proof.

But whatever the truth is, he must have come from _somewhere._

'Not from the lap of luxury', he tells you_. _You can't deny that he's far too sharp on the survival skills for a typical noble, not so well versed in protocol, as Lorenz often laments.

Some Riegan's bastard child then, hastily legitimized to avert the crisis of succession?

The way he tells it, he's certainly making himself sound like he's a lot like you: An ordinary average joe just living his life until he suddenly learned of his magical destiny and the meaning behind the strange power he now thinks of as his crest. Maybe even an ordinary village person like Leonie – but he might be telling it this way to draw you in, maybe not even lying but letting you misunderstand however you might want.

It sounds too much like one of these books where some intrepid heroine learns that she was secretly a princess and then got swept up in a life of glamour, luxury and court intrigues.

But wherever he came from, it seems like he left all on his own, to pursue that grand destiny, whatever nebulous goals he has of which the curiosity he actually admits to might not have been the least, and it seems that his parents let him go as long as he agreed to keep their secrets, though he would have been what, sixteen at the time?

He says his parents raised him to be self-reliant – that he certainly is. You've seen plenty of it, the way he struts around like he owns the place, doing whatever he wants, sticking his nose wherever it guides him. You can't help but be impressed. For all his mischievous party boy act he's probably more adult than you in some ways.

When you were his age you never even asked questions. Your destiny found you, practically beating you over the head.

…

You've discovered Marianne's secret! It's got nothing to do with ominous experiments whatsoever.

She's been spotted talking to the monastery cats, her horses and even assorted wildlife like birds.

So _that's_ what her crest does - It's like she's basically one of those princesses in folktales. To think that a crest could have such a profound impact!

It rather makes you wonder just how much yours might have impacted your daily experience in ways you would never have noticed because you never knew anything else.

You're almost tempted to reevaluate Catherine's silly claim that hers somehow attracts bad weather.

When you bring this up in your next conversation, however, she says something that stops you dead in your tracks. Turns out she's spent around the kingdom nobility's many numerous crest bearers and developed a knack for guessing which people have which crests. That, in itself, wouldn't be too preposterous, you've heard from Hanneman that it's possible for a trained individual to hazard a good guess on sight, but what really alarms you is her casual remark about how Lysithea seems to have **two**.

A scholar would have second-guessed themselves first and ruled out all possible opportunities for error before concluding anything that was so at odds with common knowledge, but Catherine as a more practical, instinct-driven person just comes right out and tells you what her senses are telling her, even if she's never seen another case before: She's pretty certain, though. She's got a crest of Charon herself and has seen very many people in her neck of the woods that had something like a crest of Gloucester. The major variant, too, in the latter case, which would certainly make sense for someone with great magical talent.

You spend the next few lessons trying hard not too stare too conspicously, looking back and forth between Lysithea and Lorenz, trying to see if you too can pick up on this elusive commonality. (All you see is that Lorenz has bought himself a new of those artificial rose pins recently; The new one is a slightly lighter, more orangey shade of red)

When you talk to Linhardt about it in exchange for answering some of his questions, he tells you something about an explosion in Hanneman's lab, presumably when Lysithea would have been tested right upon enrolling. From the looks of it, both of them have been on her case (as well as Marianne's – you better tell them to maybe ease up on her, though you don't think this will be _that_ necessary; They're good people deep down) – neither of them seems to suspect that they've got a second specimen right under their noses, though.

Were it not for that dark inkling in the back of your mind and all those ominous circumstances surrounding the only other case you know of, you might have supposed that this was just a very rare occurrence, the jackpot of the genetic lottery so to speak. To a warrior like yourself or Catherine that wouldn't seem more unusual or inexplicable than Lysithea's extraordinary talent, but your nerdy friends waste no time in explaining to you that this should have been completely impossible due to the way that a crests' presence in the blood tends to work. If two people with different crests have children, their kids might inherit one or the other, but never both. You get told that there are flowers that, when you cross a red with a white one, you get pink flowers, but in other cases, you only ever get white or red at different proportions, and that crests are like that – you're pointed to examples such as Seteth or Flayn who each have different crests, or indeed yourself, who have one different from your father's, not both.

The only way to get two different kinds of flowers on that sort of plant might be something like a graft on a fruit tree, that would meld it to a cutting from a completely different plant, but… Hanneman drifts off when you ask if that might also be applicable to humans and excuses himself for absentmindedly speculating at your face. Still, he seems glad to have been consulted and listened to; Linhardt, too. They might only ever talk about their particular interests, but they still get as sad as everyone else when what they have to say isn't seen as interesting or worthwhile; Probably, they like to be listened to every bit as much as the next person.

That just gives you even more of a guilty conscience about the things you don't dare to tell them yet, especially since Hanneman would probably pleased to know that he's probably not too far oft with his talk about 'grafts'. You remember that bit Alois told you about that time he overheard your father saying that his unusually youthful appearance (for his age) was due to being healed by an infusion of crest-bearing blood. Looking at Rhea having the same crest on the one hand, and her story about how she'd once saved him from the brink as a young man, it is easy to put two and two together. You've never met your paternal grandparents and they are probably long dead, but you wouldn't be surprised if they had no crests at all. Then there's your own case, anomalous as it may be. Having that crest stone implanted could also count as a sort of 'graft'; you don't doubt that this is where your crest came from. Even so, you only have one. Not your father's. Catherine, too, only has one, even though she had also been healed by Rhea – but she gained no additional crest from it since she already had one from birth.

Then again, Hanneman himself admits that given that Lysithea clearly _does_ exist, the theory itself might need some further refining. Maybe it really _was_ just a random stroke of luck. He's got his share of theories about how that might affect her body, but he can't confirm or deny them until he can persuade her to volunteer as his guinea pig. For her sake as well, you leave him a vial of your blood to entertain himself with. You once again thank your lucky stars for your natural poker face when Hanneman idly finds himself wishing he had more actual data points to compare with so that he could more easily tell what's just you and what's actually due to your crest. It doesn't help that the only other confirmed holder of the crest of Flames is only remembered in dubious legends from a thousand years ago.

Poor Hanneman. Your unusual circumstances as being at least partially an artificial homunculus has got to screw up his results even more, and the second specimen he so wishes for is right under his nose, sitting in his classes every other day – not that she could have been accounted as a 'typical' specimen either, but then again, the crest of Flames seems to be an anomaly by default.

But perhaps you've gotten to accustomed to thinking of everything that pertains to that realm of things that only you know as much too separate from the larger world – In truth your snooping has hardly gone unnoticed, and you really should have noticed, Lysithea is one of the sharper tools in the box if there ever was one, and if she had erred, it would be on the side of being _too_ confrontational, so it's not long before she presents you with what she knows you know.

It's true that you had some intention of getting answers out of her – maybe Claude is rubbing out of you – but once you actually speak with her, that quickly slides down the priority list on a cushion of guilt. You have other responsibilities to her, to her growth and her well-being and the direction her career, and she's just so tired about being seen for just about anything other than who she is and who she works hard to be, to be the forest missed for trees such as her age and yes, her crests (plural), tired of seeing anything she ever archives ascribed to factors beyond her control rather than efforts she puts in every day, and if you were ever even the slightest bit counted among that number you have all the more of an obligation to make it up to her and be one person who does _not_ do that for a change. "Talent" is hardly a happy gift if it's supposed to dictate the path of your life for you, if it restricts options rather than expands them. If her path is laid out before her simply because she's "gifted" such a gift would be closer to a curse – but what makes all this even harder in a way, is that she's not like Sylvain, who was content simply to escape the expectations. She actually _is_ very driven to succeed, so much so that it seems like a painful, urgent need which is probably what fuels her relative impatience, abrasiveness and even a certain ruthless edge.

Here's someone else who's got her life more figured out than you despite being much younger, and that even though she's only just past the edge of childhood. But it is precisely that commitment to her path that sets her up to be in the crossfires of all that hated talk about "talent". In

Later you will look back at your conversation and think that you should have suspected that there must have been something more pushing her onward than simply the many expectations heaped on an heir and an only child, but for now, you drop the topic of crests completely and do not pick it up again. Her previous tutors have deemed her to be a natural at offensive magic and decided that this is a path she ought to be pursuing in part because of her magic-enhancing major crest and they were probably right, but you've also heard her mention how she thinks that true enlightenment ought to require a thorough understanding of both reason and faith, quite the sophisticated philosophic opinion even if it comes from a high, youthful voice – you recall also that she was quite pleased when you got her that goddess statuette for her birthday a while back… or was it in another timeline? In any case regardless of your growing doubts toward Rhea and the church you're glad that you let Rhea teach you all about faith magic the last time around if only because you now get to take Lysithea up on her words and offer to get her closer to enlightenment in the way that _she_ would like to pursue it.

...

"The Son of house Aegir is not so easily swayed~"

In your place, another person may have groaned in despair. You for your part simply acknowledge what happen and resolve to try again. This latest recruiting project is shaping up to be a particularly tough nut to crack; It's like you can feel the time ticking away.

You remain sober enough to understand though – since he is heir to one of the empire's most influential families, you can see why he would wish to stick to its designated house.

It's not like he knows that you're trying to save his life.

You simply don't want to watch him die again on that bridge, and that alone was your intention when you brought it up to Claude that you might conspire to get some of the other students to switch class. As it would turn out, he really _liked_ that idea.

And yes, at some point during the ensuing he inevitably broke out the most shit-eating smirk he could manage and implored you to "Go fetch some strong ones so we can get an edge of the other houses", he was probably seconds away rubbing his hands together and breaking out in an evil laugh, but he also ended up saying a whole lot of surprisingly mature things, about how what he liked most of the academy was that it brought people from different backgrounds together. So why should they really stop at the borders of their territories? Bringing others into their fold could only help foster cooperation across Fodlan – and yes, no doubt, Claude's opportunities for networking with powerful future leaders – but he seemed genuinely psyched about the whole 'cross-cultural understanding' part. In a sense, it fit his marketing scheme: Anyone who wants could be a Golden Deer™. Lorenz took a bit of umbrage with that and felt that this made light of the Alliance's unique traditions, but in the end he, too, would not terribly mind some political connections. So the bigshots in your house were definitely on board with your plan.

Sylvain, Linhard and Felix were relatively easy to sway; They like you. They're hardly what would be considered easy to impress, but you happen to be uniquely suited to impressing them, as a mysterious powerful warrior with a rare crest and what not.

At this time in his life Felix was already sort of distancing himself from his former friends and classmates and looking to thread his own path, and you, being the mighty sword fighter that you are, seem like the perfect vehicle for that. Last time around you don't think he regretted staying with the kingdom so you're not sure that you should be encouraging that tendency of his, but it's what he wants, or thinks he wants. After all you wish to keep him from what he would currently consider a senseless death.

Sylvain probably joined to stay with his lifelong friend, whatever he might be saying. Ingrid and Dimitri weren't exactly happy about that and the former made sure to lambast him for ditching his oldest friends just so he could switch to a class with more girls. Sylvain genuinely laughed it off though. He said that simply _studying_ with people from another country didn't mean that he was going to move there, and, being himself, cracked some joke about how, if he _were_ to move, he would most definitely pick Adrestia, because concubines.

"I've heard the current emperor had, like, _six_ of them in total, on top of his actual wife!"

"Wow, then Edelgard must have, like, a ton of little brothers and sisters!" Anette suggested then. "Or maybe not – She never mentioned any."

None of his Dimitri's classmates would have fully understood why he got so mad then, or why he went on to rant about how Emperor Ionius couldn't have loved any of them properly if he lacked the guts to stand with the one he loved. As often, he's seeing things in too simple black and white, but you can't precisely blame him. It's a bit weird to imagine your parents, or parental figures, with someone else. You felt a bit weird too when you started hearing about how your father was with some nun from the monastery during his time here before it began to dawn on you that this nun and your mother were one and the same.

"You better not say this in front of the princess, Your Highness! I think her mother was a concubine."

Yet even Sylvain – no, _especially_ Sylvain – must have understood that the old practice of concubinage had mostly been kept alive by nobles looking to form political alliances, produce plentiful crest babies, or to simply indulge in decadence and use those of lower status like things.

It's not unlikely that somewhere in Adrestia, some individuals are in quite happy, benign multiple-person marriages, but that was probably far from the norm. From what you're told, many people in the kingdom looked at it as a symptom of the empire's godless degeneracy and their estrangement from the church, something that they themselves only knew from stories before the foundation of the kingdom, when the Faerghus region used to be a hotbed for beliefs from pre-imperial times, but once it split off, the church had apparently enforced their beliefs quite thoroughly, so that the Holy Kingdom with its holy knights was now considered a haven of piety or virtue, enough so that Dimitri's response didn't seem out of the ordinary to his friends. Given that you've once helped Dimitri run his country though, you can't say that the kingdom is truly all that different with its brutal repression of its neighbors and insistence on crests and the like – but it's certainly a problem in _all_ of Fodlan.

But that considered, Anette really _did_ point out something interesting there: It _is_ strange that Edelgard doesn't have any siblings (not counting Dimitri). Yeah, she didn't tell you about _him_, but she did mention her father's wife and many lovers and how he took them for the express purpose of producing many heirs. You would think that would have resulted in at least a couple more babies other than just Edelgard. Edelgard did have the desired crest(s) but it's unlikely that all those other ladies would immediately have given up all their ambitions of producing royal babies and the prestige and influence that would bring to themselves and their families. Perhaps the emperor had trouble conceiving?

It's not like you can go and ask Edelgard. You might have, with the version of her that grew to be your close friend or confidant, but the one here has only known you a few weeks and not spent nearly as much time with you as, say, Claude. She's probably rather peeved that you're looking to poach her house members.

Well, one way or another, Sylvain does end up joining your house despite his friends' protests – and why wouldn't he? As far as he knows, there's nothing more on the line than where exactly he will spend the next year. It's a purely academic decision, heck, you're not even sure he's considering his education so much as his own fun, but why shouldn't he? It's not like he's expecting there to be a war or anything, or that he would have to fight his old friends beyond some friendly competition at the next mock battle.

Given his love of slacking off and partying, he fits right in with the other Deer; At most, he ends up butting heads with Lorenz over who can pick up the most girls or some nonsense like that. Soon you spot him giving pep talks to Marianne or, perhaps not as surprising to you as it might have been to others, actually discussing politics with Claude, something about how to deescalate the situation in Sreng, to which Claude ends up listening quite intently and floating his own ideas here and there. They basically hit it off. Most likely, both of them found it convenient to forge some superficial bond for fun, and then found out that the other had a lot more depth and intelligence than he let on, and that was that.

Similar things could be said for Linhardt. You bet that whenever you're out of earshot, they'll soon start swapping tales about how to sneak in into the monastery's various secret chambers or what peculiar secrets the other students might be hiding (indeed you suspect that part of his reason for joining might have involved a chance to get closer to Marianne's and Lysithea's respective secrets; You'll have to make sure that he doesn't bother them too much, as if Lorenz and Sylvain weren't enough to worry about. ). Even _within_ your earshot you've caught the discussing quite a few things that some might have termed 'blasphemous', like when Claude grilled Linhardt about relics like he usually probes people for information, and realized soon that he had come to the right place: Soon Linhardt was discussing his theories about how the origin of crests might be differently than what is commonly assumed, or that one time he asked Catherine to let him hold Thunderbrand: "You know where the relics come from?"

"The goddess, supposedly?"

"Exactly. So once they hear that, everyone stops thinking about it. No one wonders about what they are, how exactly they work, what their true nature is-"

"Tell me more, friend."

Needless to say, Claude turns out quite pleased with the 'reinforcements' you have procured, or at least, he finds them useful. Though you suppose that it's his nature to try and at least superficially get along with anyone who might prove to be a useful connection later on, the other house leaders included – so, despite your nefarious plot to sway their classmates, you actually end up spending quite a lot of time with them. Claude makes sure to bring you when you can when you're supposedly so popular. You're sure Sothis would tease you about this if she could talk to you right now.

It's not funny _to you_, to be with those two who, though never in the same world, had each become so important to you, to have them sit across from you, so unfinished and young, regarding you as an interesting stranger, clueless about the guilt that burns within you or the wrath that they might feel if they knew what you do – still, you can't say that you hate it. You realize that, if this goes well, this will be the last time that you'll all spend time together like this as friends.

You know the clock is ticking, though nobody else does – except Edelgard, perhaps.

Did she care at all when she crossed that threshold, did it also crush her to leave all this behind?

No, that's not fair, you know well that she must at least have regretted you, and why not her friends, if they would have stuck to her to the end if not for your influence?

This is not like last time, when you thought her a power-mad traitor. Though she may have been misguided, you can't say in your heart that she's _evil. _Her methods might be wrong, and what she's planning might be going too far, but she was probably brought to this by desperation, some unknown event you don't know about, some 'death' as she considered it.

You can't bring yourself to avoid her or push her aside. You look at this version of her that's not yet as guilty and you wish that she could stay this way. It's impossible of course, _she'd_ have to want it, too – but while you're both here, why would you not want to linger a while?

Dimitri, too, seems to feel the same, though you're not sure what he thinks about you. He treats you with friendship just out of principle, and takes every defeat you deal him as an opportunity to learn from you. You try to say encouraging things to you, but you do so with the evident grating awareness that it probably won't be enough, that you can't break the ice of change the trajectory of his life with just occasional chitchat.

Sometimes you feel exceedingly sorry for him, in a way you only could after having known him well, because he's _just that sincere_ and really, honestly wants to be friends with the other two leaders, and they simply don't feel the same way. Claude shares his general preference for peace over no peace so he's receptive enough, and Dimitri will take any peace he is given – that's probably why they were able to work things out in that other timeline – but he's probably being played a whole lot more than he realizes. Edelgard is probably quite aware of the politics below the surface, but not Dimitri – he would probably be incensed at the suggestion. It's not that he doesn't have the foresight to expect schemes but he genuinely, thoroughly wants to be friends.

Seeing the three of them happy together like that is heartrendingly bittersweet – but even though you've chosen to go with Claude who very clearly seems to want that same thing, you do not dare to hope that this might continue into the future.

For what it's worth, the other two are fairly cool with your recruiting schemes. Though she's clearly more annoyed than she would like to admit, Edelgard decides to see this an a reminder and an encouragement to make sure she makes her class more appealing. She says she will be useless as a leader unless she gets people to follow her for her own merits, not only because of her titles or where they happened to be born. Dimitri doesn't even put up a fight – ever knightly and sportsmanlike, he cracks half a sad joke about how he would never want to stand in the way of his friends' personal development or choices. His real feelings might have been entirely different matter – at least Felix' desertion must have stung. There's no way that it could have been written off as a whim.

Between all these new 'acquisition', Claude floats some ideas of his own, though they're not exactly what you would expect, but the surprise is largely positive. He doesn't tell you to simply nab the richest, strongest or the more influential ones, but instead presents you with some fairly innocuous choices like Petra or Anette. Now, Anette is certainly a hard worker and Petra has many admirable qualities from strength to positivity to leadership and thoughtfulness but they're still not exactly what you expected. When he overheard your conversation, Sylvain certainly cheered at the prospect of attracting more cute girls, but you doubt that Claude's motivation would be as simple as that.

A common denominator between them seems to be that they're not against devious tactics but still fundamentally honorable. They're not _ruthless_ the way that Hubert, Felix or even Lysithea might be, or the other two house leaders. Indeed, Petra once told you that her preference for 'attacks that are surprising' comes from her preference to choose whatever keeps her allies safe. Is that what Claude values? You've got to give him that: In the last world, he did get his people through the war with a minimal amount o casualties. But in yet another, the first one… well. At the time, you didn't question it. It seemed like the most obvious thing imaginable that anyone who wasn't evil would fight the empire by default. You thought of them as a self-evident enemy.

You heard many considering Claude's neutrality as a spineless self-serving ploy; The more level-headed would describe it as simple self-defense, the more insightful as a ploy to keep the Alliance united, his eventual strike simultaneous with the Kingdom's as taking advantage of an opening or a chance when it finally presented itself.

But now you're not so sure, or, you notice the contradictions that are more evident once you have some very rough idea of the mind behind it: Five years of very defensive play, followed by what was essentially a reckless charge, a desperate attack at two better armed foes which cost his people many soldiers. Sure, he tried to talk Dimitri down then, join forces… but when pressed, he didn't back away. Something doesn't add up. He really must have some other goal, some other ambition.

Behind this was the assumption that the Empire would have gone and bulldozed the Alliance sooner or later anyways if Edelgard wasn't hindered – would she even halt at Fodlan's borders? You had simply bought into the church's view of her as something like a wildfire, discarding all your earlier impressions of her as a fundamentally rational person or rather, distrusting them, since you had been mistaken about her before.

But even evil people have some sort of goal. Even actual ruthless conquerors would pursue something, spoils and bounty maybe – the same is true for good people. Whatever goals you have, good or evil or anything in between, you need resources and steps to archive them.

Edelgard would have specific goals that she is pursuing, a cause that she believes in, just like Seteth or Dimitri. From hearing her at the parlay you could tell she at least truly believed that she was doing what she said he was doing. She had an objective which is, as even Dimitri acknowledged in the end, to remove the rule of the church. It wasn't just a front or rederrick to conceal a lost for power. She wouldn't fight anyone who didn't get in the way of that goal, just because of… logistics. She doesn't have infinite resources.

Five long years she left the Alliance alone. Five long years, when you think of it, Claude's actions almost did more to help than to hinder her. Even just _half_ the alliance's forced would have been a boon to the church – once he _did_ ally with you and send you troops, it allowed for your decisive push into imperial territory in timeline number one. When you think about it, it was _Claude_ who first attacked the empire, and only then did they send their troops to his door.

It looks like a gamble, a desperate one that he lost one time (you're not sure he died, but would crawling away in disgrace after spending an army for some cause they did not understand be so much better?) and won another time – but only because of a second gamble which relied on you and Dimitri bailing him out, and he still had to cut his losses and leave.

He did tell you (and Dimitri) back in Derdriu that his plan probably looked much less haphazard than it actually was, but you wouldn't believe him.

It honestly starts looking rather reckless and irresponsible, downright bratty, especially with him running off and leaving the mess to you afterwards.

Well, all this boils down to might be as simple as the realization that he, too, is only a man, with amazing strengths and tragic weaknesses like anyone else.

It's not like you can ask him – the man who handed you one of the very relics he is chasing now, discarding this whole pursuit (you realize now), doesn't even exist yet – not here.

It certainly seems like he was attempting… _something_ beyond just fighting the empire, but you can hardly asked Claude about a scheme that he hasn't hatched yet.

He's still a boy, you can't tell how he might grow, or decide – you've got to hope that he will tell you what he's doing if you're still at his side by that point.

There was some aim – didn't Ignatz also say something about 'building the future' back when you -

And here he is, all small and innocent, his face is still all round.

Better not to think of _that_ future, it will never come to pass now.

The ulterior motives are fairly blatant when he floats the thought that you might suggest to Seteth that surely his 'sister' would benefit from taking some classes if she's already living near such a formidable institution, he wants a chance to squeeze information from her away from her guardian's watchful eyes. There's no way that you're selling her out, but lucky for Claude, you suspect that he might get his chance anyways once she joins your class – after it happened both of the last two times you're pretty sure now that she'll join you again.

It's hard to think of any questionable motives he might have when he suggests that you recruit _Cyril_, however. You'd think that they would be diametrically opposed since Cyril often guards a lot of the places that Claude would really really like to sneak into, and for the most part Claude doesn't seem to have much patience for any sort of follower's mindset, but against the odds he seems to have a soft spot for the kid, like he felt responsible somehow. Unexpectedly mature of him really.

He could really just have asked you, but leave it to the 'embodyment of distrust' to make extra sure to present his case and even rope his classmates into it. This is how you learn that Lysithea has apparently been giving him reading lessons. Claude even made sure to have Hilda give you her best googly eyes: "You know what they say about the brutes from behind the mountains, I mean, my family's been fighting them of for ages, but once you get to know him, you'll see that he's not like that at all! I was pretty surprised~"

"Most people tend to surprise you, once you get to know them," Claude says meaningfully, like there's something he's not saying, but then he cracks up The Smirk and flexes his rhetorical prowess on you: Aren't you church personnel`? If he's a ward of the church, aren't you responsible?

"Well, the church did take him in, " reasons Hilda, "...but he does work very hard. Honestly a bit too hard, even if I know how that sounds coming from me. I was shocked to learn that he lived at our family's holdings before, I'd have to have a world with my old man about it to be honest."

Well, her family, you suppose, is in the same boat as Sylvain's, except that you don't catch her reading books about Almyra. It's a bit of a reminder that she _is_ an idle rich girl after all, but once the discrepancies had been brought to her attention and a few enlightening conversations, her natural compassion seemed to have won out.

Claude nods along with her, including, old enough, the 'old man' part.

"Excuse me if I'm missing something here, teach, but if they're making him work, how exactly is it charity, anyways? I mean, you'd think that Rhea would at least be able to get someone to teach him how to read, seeing as she's got a _school_ on the premises, right?"

You'd actually brought this up to Seteth once before, and he agreed – you say this. Claude finds it strange that _Seteth_ would be the one looking out for the kid's personal development when Rhea sees him every day. It would seem to have improved your opinion of Seteth.

Since Cyril clearly _wants_ to keep working you don't have him pulled from such duties entirely, you can sort of understand, seeing as you too have done your own part in the mercenary guild since you could think, or as early as your father would allow. You know what it's like to feel at a loss when asked about life plans you don't have and asking yourself, isn't helping where you can enough?

But you certainly see the difference between that and the leisurely youth and tailored education many of the nobles and merchant kids received, or even your own life where you always had room and board and your father looking out for you.

Maybe right now he doesn't want to do anything else but help out at the monastery, but if he ever changes his mind, he should be able to, and have the means to do it, right? You think you can drop him right into the more practical subjects, but he'll need some extra tutoring before he could even dream of approaching the more theoretical ones. He simply doesn't have the same background knowledge as the others – at last, it would be great if he could read. That would come in handy if he wanted to, say, pursue some administrative position in the church. So you join forces with Lysithea on that one.

Then you start thinking. Cyril is obviously an extreme case in that he's never had any education at all, but he's not the only one who has gaps. Maybe you could talk to Seteth about instituting catch-up classes for students from less privileged backgrounds or something. Seteth seems like he is at least somewhat aware of and sensitive towards the problems brought on by class differences.

"We'd only get platitudes from Rhea, wouldn't we?" he says, sprinkled in amidst a longer speech in which he very much liked the idea and offered to sponsor such a program insofar as he could.

It seems at first like just one of those things he says, where he acts like he doesn't respect or truly care about anything, probably more than is actually the case, but – it sticks in the back of your mind like a fly caught in a spiderweb.

As for Anette and Petra, recruiting them works easier than you expected – Anette is already friends with Hilda and Lysithea and easily motivated by accommodations and academic prospects, as for Petra, Claude winks, smiles and unsubtly dangles the implication of political favors and cooperation before her. Even if that must be tempting for her, she's not the sort to change her plans just because of that. If she didn't actually like you, Claude, or both of your leadership styles, she would probably refuse, but neither would she let potentially displeasing her Imperial hosts keep her back from chances to further political connections or her own personal development.

Ferdinand is still taking a whole lot of you very limited time… but it's not like you could recruit them all, no matter how much you wish you could it's simply not realistic – Hanneman and Manuela are already kind of shooting you looks.

...

You still know nothing about Claude.

Correction: You know a whole lot more about Claude, and his classmates, and the Alliance itself, just not the bits that you want. A mosaic picture of him emerges, but it's still hard to make heads or tails of it without crucial context.

But does the person before you count for nothing?

You know now that he likes Poetry. You saw him arguing about it with Lorenz and discussing some convoluted interpretation to one of Anette's songs. You know he likes to be out in nature and to broaden his horizons – you've seen him sitting outside with Petra or Shamir, asking them questions about their corners of the world. He's certainly an open minded person, yes… but there seems to be something more to that when you go on that mission to scour the port of pirates and he finds it very important to clarify that your opponents are definitely _not_ the Almyran navy.

You've been inside his room, covered in un-finished contraptions and a mess of half-read books. You know he practices regular meditation.

He's definitely got some backstory there, but you're not sure if it's consistent with what he's told him. When you go with Lorenz to mop up some uppity noble (...isn't that that one Turncoat?), he goes full on dont-you-know-who-I-am on the clueless nuisance of a man. He seems unfamiliar with protocol as you know it, but he acts just a bit too imperious to have been living as a commoner until last year… You're pretty sure you heard Hilda mentioning that he told her some funny anecdote about his _combat instructor, _which sounds not like something a random village boy could afford.

Maybe he did not go straight from his village to Derdriu… who exactly _is_ his father?

At least you're pretty sure now that he definitely didn't assassinate his uncle. That was Lorenz' own father, and he seems to have killed Raphael's parents right along with him – the future bodes ill for the Alliance if its lords go around assassinating each other.

You can barely imagine the relief of the few remaining Riegans when a potential capable heir showed up out of nowhere – or rather, the desperation that must have driven them to back such an unknown dark horse candidate.

Out of the three, Claude's position is somehow the most precarious and the most certain at the same time. Precarious because he has viable rivals whereas his own past is in doubt – and certain because he's already pretty much taken over where Edelgard has to stage a coup and Dimitri was just patiently waiting to turn eighteen only to be upstaged before his butt touched the throne.

Claude is already being whisked away on Alliance business no and then, attending the occasional meeting for his aged grandfather, slowly but surely, expertly inserting himself into the political webs and networks as if he's been doing this all his life.

The Alliance is already as good as in his graft even while he sits here warming his school bench; What a sly, ingenious man.

One day, you find a note from him in the advice box:

"Professor, am I weird?"

You can pretty much picture the soft, uncertain expression he must have worn as he was writing this.

You consider asking him, but -

You think he might be losing patience with you ever since you got your hands on the "mountain breaking sword" he was so interested in. You're not hiding anything from him out of malice. You're way in the dark yourself. You wish you could think of some way to show him this.

...

Claude is not telling you anything new when he brings up the rumors about the relics being haunted by incidents of misfortune.

Knowing what you do about what happened with Sylvain's brothers, having seen it with you own eyes-

It should have been harder to believe if there weren't any such tales.

Yet it never registered before that what you were asked to do was essentially a coverup. Like what Catherine was made to do.

"Tell no one – people would lose faith in the nobles if they knew that one of them turned into a monster."

…

With so many of you sneaking around looking for answers, it's no surprise that some of you might wind up at the library at the same time.

One day, Edelgard is behind you like a looming shadow, just as Claude was about to explain his latest theory to you, and the two house leaders just stare at each other with piercing eyes, two equal mysteries.

You don't know it yet, but you will never quite stop wanting to kick yourself about this missed opportunity. They were so close to telling each other the truth, a hair's breath from joining forces…

But neither of them is like Dimitri, willing to take risks and put himself in a vulnerable position for the sake of mutual understanding.

They had good reasons to be wary. Neither of their lives had given them very many reasons to trust – and you were hardly any better, for you didn't know near enough at this point to fully trust either and vouch for each of them before the other. You couldn't have said if either goal or ambition was desirable… so they part ways with an unsubtle warning about not getting in each other's ways.

You know what Edelgard's planning even if you're still trying to grasp why, but you have no idea about Claude.

He says that it's a selfless dream, that his secrets aren't really anything that special. Clearly, he's still trying to actually recruit you. Still trying to sell you on following him…

Not that Edelgard has given up.

...

You don't know why you even remotely trust her in any kind of sense. You just think you have seen evidence that she is also pursuing these truths, if only for the self-serving motive of getting dirt on her opponent. You approach her one day when almost everyone else is in the cathedral.

You were leaning on the wall in the back behind the rows of seats while everyone else is praying. Claude came with you; He's entertained enough in observing the rites and sermons from the sidelines and making the occasional comment, agreeing with some things and disagreeing with others. But Petra has more to add to this conversation than you do, so before long his attention is focused on her and he seems to forget everything else in the room, absorbed in the finer points of spirituality and philosophy; He's theorizing about how a country's historical circumstances might influence its beliefs. Shamir looks bored. Not far from you, Hubert is smirking to himself; You suspect that if he got to air his thoughts, even Claude would think them crass.

Dedue is keeping his distance even from the others in your small cluster of foreigners and non-believers, which includes many of the Adrestian students. Edelgard is with them, her expression completely unreadable. She couldn't just keep to her room, not when she's supposed to be representing her house and her country – staying away completely would probably have been deemed too much of a slight with that crimson cape hanging of her shoulder; but halfway through, she excuses herself. Hubert does not follow – perhaps he's volunteered to keep an eye on her classmates, or they're simply not planning anything for today.

This is your chance, the only one you might get: Almost all the monastery complex would be very close to deserted now that all its inhabitants were crammed in here for prayer. If you follow her now, the two of you shall have the building complex almost all to your selves.

Still you know better than to tempt fate, and so does she. She stops in her tracks when she notices your steps behind her; You make sure to listen for anyone else's breath before you speak:

"Tell me just one thing. The church is...hiding something, right?"

"The Relics. Investigate them."

That, it appears, is all she can say before she disappears back into the darkness.

...

You make sure to take the time to go fishing with your father whenever you can squeeze it into your schedule.

You might not be able to change what's coming to him but you'll damn well make sure that he knows that you care about him before that happens. At first it kind of seemed to confuse him, but even so he did seem touched, insofar as his usual gruff attitude would reveal that.

When you can, you even bring Leonie and Alois along even if it means that you have to endure them. The three of you end up sitting at the pond, or in the Gardens, or even at Alois' house. His wife ends up commenting on what a cute family you seem to be.

Come father's day you even make sure to contact the two of them so you can all organize some surprise outing, not that any of your modest proposals would ever seem good enough to Leonie. Everything you do is somehow "not enough appreciation".

You're father, for his part, seems pleased that you've taken her under your wing and tells you to get along nicely. That might be the one teaching of his that she didn't seem inclined to listen to.

Then again your father wouldn't know how much harder it can be to deal with her when you're not him… especially if you're you. From what you've seen she's pretty chill with the other Golden Deer, it's you in particular that she seems to have a problem with.

You suppose even you can't be popular with everyone, wanting more than you already have would be greedy.

In some ways you're not too different from Leonie; You're from a common background, you like fishing, you have a sort of pragmatic fighting style, not to mention your similar choice of profession. If you had an annoying younger sister (_very_ annoying), she would probably be just like Leonie – sibling rivalry included. You kind of get her frustration – unlike you, she never found out that she secretly has a rare forgotten power nor did she ever have a priceless relic falling into her hands.

She needn't have worried, though. Your father's more mundane legacy, including his mercenary band, will probably be hers to carry on, while you remain to be swept up by your own lofty destiny.

You won't be permitted to keep lingering in this ordinary world for much longer.

….

You thought you had reached your quota of unforeseen surprises when Claude not only confronted you with an old drawing of… Rhea (not that he would recognize her in that form), but pointed your attention to that bit on her forehead that looks a whole lot like a crest stone.

\- All this in a heavy old tome which Seteth promptly confiscates; This is all but an admission. You shouldn't have needed Claude's blunt, outside perspective to realize it:

The church is undeniably hiding things. Curating and manipulating what sort of information is available to the current public.

You feel a fresh sting of disappointment… your feelings are already pretty numbed out when it comes to Rhea, but you trusted Seteth -well, can you really fault him? Surely he's just keeping his own secrets in order to protect himself and his daughter from being targeted.

All in all you are glad that he doesn't push poor Flayn too harshly even when he decides that the two of you should try pressing her – no, it might be precisely because he understands why someone might want to keep certain things private. He's got his own secrets in the end, and his promise to his parents. Also, you've come to realize that for all his show of being a grand trickster, he is simply not all that ruthless. In the last battle he tried to rile up Edelgard with the classic "Look a mouse" maneuver but seemed taken aback when she was genuinely upset by it, which was somewhat out of character for her, come to think of it. There might or might not be a longer story to it, but even without knowing it, Claude didn't laugh at her.

And here's another thing to admire about Claude: Even when new information seems to align with his quest, he maintains an objective look at things.

He changes his tune right away when he suspects that Solon may have _wanted_ you to get suspicious of the church. Claude is certainly a politically savy to his core: His first thought is 'cui bono'? He sure doesn't want to be playing into anybody's traps… come to think of it, the Agarthans appear to have been involved in and supporting several independent rebellions. You assumed that they must have been more connected than you first thought o this common threads, but now you're beginning to think that they're deliberately looking to stir them up – in fact that must have been what Solon had in mind when he leaked those classified material to yourself and Claude. To use him as an agent against the church… is this what happened to Edelgard? Did they feed her false information of fake crimes beyond what the church actually did? Or even of real crimes, but with the clear intention to deceive her into an alliance… Still, she can't have been so deceived as not to know the sorts of things that they were up to. There were demonic beasts in her armies. Even if the church is seriously corrupt, wouldn't she just be driving out the devil with the beelzebub, possibly on false information? Was she just a tool here the whole time?

You can't say. You might not have any right to speak here because you're pretty sure that _you_ were a tool all along.

But the bottom line is the same: There is more than one enemy here. Yourself and Claude are simply finding out in the opposite order. He was already suspicious of the church but only just seems to have learned of the Agarthans (its not like they infiltrated his country or killed his family – he only recently came to Fodlan's political stage), and you always knew of the Agarthans and their affiliation with the empire, but all the while you didn't realize that you'd been working for a very dubious organization all along.

Was the entire conflict that was ostensibly between the Empire and the Kingdom really nothing but a puppet war between Shambhalla and the church?

(If you have to be someone's puppet in the end, Claude is starting to look like the best option at this point...)

…

You dance with Claude at the ball, like you've done it twice before, but this time it's different.

You get now why he'd seek you out as you were standing there all on your own, sticking out like a sore thumb; Maybe it's in part to overcome his own feelings of awkwardness but mostly, he's probably genuine in not wanting you to feel left out since he knows full well what it feels like.

It becomes all the more clear after he follows you to the goddess tower.

He's almost as new to official balls as you are; What he says about how he can put on the trappings, but not change who he is on the inside? You feel that. Even the third time around, you don't exactly feel very much like a prophet or a messiah...

Well. Old habits die hard. You definitely don't believe him that he just so happened to feel tired out by the crowd just as you were about to leave – He was definitely tailing you. Unlike Edelgard or Dimitri, he's most definitely no introvert. On some level he's still kind of telling you what he thinks you want to hear.

But his shields have somewhat lowered – he openly shows you his ambition now, as well as his irreverence toward the Seiros religion, even if he's just sort of letting it slip to observe your reaction. If only he knew just how right he is about that whole bit "even goddesses must party sometime". You distinctly remember Sothis clamoring about how much she would rather be dancing.

It's strange – in all this time, you still haven't really learned what he's planning, or what his deal is, but you feel that there is a bond between the two of you.

"You know," he says then, just as you were walking back to the dorms without a care in the world, breathing in the cold evening air, "Sometimes you're so unflappable that it almost seems you know exactly what was going to happen-"

Well, you could not predict that he was going to say this, and he probably noticed. You have got to be careful around him. He is sharper than one of Zoltan's blades.

…

You know that anger is a natural state of grief, and that people sometimes lash out when they're not at their best.

If it were anyone else, in any other situation, you'd just keep listening, giving them the chance to vent their woes while remaining a calm and grounded pillar beside them…

But not this time, not when the very same reason that has Leonie acting like this is the pain that cuts you to the core.

You're _tired_ of this, again and _again_, and you can never do anything about it.

You wish she would be quiet.

...

If you had the energy to be mad you might have been offended at Claude's suggestion that you smile, keep up appearances and act like nothing's wrong when your father just died.

It's probably for the better; Lacking in fire, your exhausted mind still understands that he's here to check in on you. Like Dimitri and Edelgard did when it was their turn to be in this situation, he's simply offering you the strategies that got _him_ through the worst parts of his life.

He _had_ to be this way; Most likely, he didn't want his detractors to realize that they got to him, or he was doing his best to be strong for his mother so that she wouldn't feel guilty for putting him in a world that was never going to welcome you.

He's not just here for you though – you are certainly a genuine part of it, but his eyes do keep darting to the diary on your father's old desk.

To your own great surprise, you tell him everything, or very nearly so.

About the Diary, about your past, even about Sothis, withholding only those things where you could not explain where you know them from without sounding like a complete lunatic.

At that moment you were simply tired and frustrated and you're not exactly certain that you weren't converged upon in your moment of weakness – You'd certainly deem hi capable of actually swiping your father's diary by himself if you hadn't let him.

But it felt good to get it off your chest, and looking back you come to realize that this came to be a crucial turning point in your relationship.

Under the circumstances, you could not have deceived him even if you'd wanted; After telling him all that, he must have realized that you were really being honest with him and not withholding the answers he wanted out of any ulterior motives.

Rather than suspect you, he now seems determined to help you find the answers for your own sake as well, like some sort of private investigator. He has, in short, truly become your ally, and begun to think of you in similar terms.

You're not sure if he'll dig up anything that Rhea didn't already tell you in that alternate future, but you appreciate the thought. He seems to think you should be a whole lot more mad and concerned about all that. To some extent he's probably trying to sell you 'finding out the secrets of the church' as something that's in your interest as well to get access to the walking, talking piece of damning evidence that you are, but it feels like he's truly looking out for you.

No, he _IS_ looking out for you. He genuinely thinks that this will help you as well; He's merely putting your interests in alignment. From your own experience, you know that's what great leaders do: Think win-win. It might not quite fit with traditional ideals of chivalrous sacrifice, but you're enough of a pragmatist not to lament that; The world isn't always a zero sum-game. For Claude to be winning something he wants doesn't mean that somebody else must be losing. If you can't rely on someone else's loyalty, you can at least expect that they'll be loyal to their own interests once they've been brought into alignment with yours...

Now, you have truly forged a contract with him.

...

You _want _to believe Edelgard when she assures you that she'll do whatever it takes to get justice for your father. It looks very much like a heartfelt declaration.

But how exactly is she planning to accomplish this if the culprit's her own ally?

...

You'd like to believe Claude, too.

He probably means quite a lot of things when he says that he'll help you, even if it means going against Rhea – some of those serve his agenda, other implications signal an intention to stick to your side even if it should become politically inconvenient.

You know what they say about the devil you know, but in this case he's beginning to seem like the better bet. He's an unknown where Rhea is a known quantity, but what is 'known' about her is that she might not consider you more than a convenient meat bag. If Claude stabs you in the back in the end at least you won't see it coming.

In the end, there doesn't turn out to be a need to go against her – a little well-places flattery and convingly presented strategic observations from Claude and bam, he's convinced her to let you go into the sealed forest in such a cunning manner that she probably came away thinking that it was her own idea. A cunning mastermind she is not.

She's rather pitiful, in a way, a lost child lashing out cause she can't find her mother, disguised in the ill-fitting garb of a leader, a position that you knew she found little enjoyment in.

Whatever it is that she is or isn't scheming you think you already know why.

More than once you take suspiciously long to answer because you have to make sure to keep straight who already knows what. You try also to gauge the extent of the gaps in your very own knowledge.

And sure, you might tell yourself that while there's not much catharsis left to be found in killing Kronya a third time, you can't afford to let her go free…

But actually, no. You're absolutely looking forward to beating her ass; For once, yourself and Leonie are of the same heart and mind.

The Agarthan assassin's death has got to 'fate' too, let's see how she likes it.

You run into Solon again; His rambles make marginally more sense now that you know something of his history but that makes him no less repugnant.

At least the time comes and you feel your old power waiting at your fingertips again, leaving you little choice but to use it if you're hoping to get out of this empty void.

Before you stands an empty throne.

Who knows what other indescribable things have their eyes on you here.

The light still feels every time as if you're losing something; like part of you is being burned away.

Maybe you lose something every time you come here; It's not like you'd be able to tell after the fact. You can only judge your memories from with the eyes you have right now, and you can only feel what is left.

Everything goes like you think it went the last few times, your return, your making quick business of Solon and subsequently losing your footing before you could do very much about it even with prior warning, and the chilling instinct that takes hold of you when you awake in Rhea's lap.

Whatever knowledge your mind might hold, your body is still subject to the limitations of the here and now, too weak for either fight or flight, so all that's left at your disposal is to freeze, holding still like you're nothing but meat.

You have not stood frozen like this since… no, not even in childhood amid your first forays in battle. You might not have had that capacity then.

Little wonder then that when you first arrived here, she must have seen you as nothing more than this:

a vacant vessel, waiting to be filled, and any sign that you were anything else would have been taken as sign of someone else waking up.

You wish your father was still here. He was always your roots on the earth. It takes you quite a bit of time spent with the Golden Deer before you've convinced yourself that you're real again.

You also wish you could hear Sothis, not only because you miss her, but because it's very easy to see how you're separate when she's speaking to you as a distinct person, ordering you around and what not.

After you've assisted Marianne with grooming the horses at the stables and helped Hilda to produce a suitable gift for Raphael's sister, what passed in the Archbishop's chamber soon fades away like a bad dream.

After that, you start preparing your students for the mission at the holy tomb as if you're training for a real war – after all, there will most likely _be_ one. The ceremonial importance of the ritual flies as an excuse with most of them, but Claude might not be convinced.

He doesn't disagree with the course of action itself, however: "There shouldn't be any danger for us, but… you be safe."

...

Be careful? What did Claude mean by that? What did he think was going to happen down there?

Even if he had somehow anticipated the common confrontation, why would he think that _you_ would be in any particular danger?

He said that it seemed strange that you'd be expected to go through a ritual to gain a revelation after you've supposedly already spoken with the goddess before, and if it were anyone else, anyone remotely less sharp, you might just chalk it up to Claude not understanding it since he's not a particularly religious person – that's how you wrote off your own doubts the first time around.

But didn't even Mercedes and Anette say something about it had seemed oddly redundant?

Claude couldn't possibly know what's being played at this point, otherwise he would have been more direct in his warnings. He probably had little more than a bad premonition, a lone alarm bell in the night being fiercely rung by his instinct and intuition pulling at the cord hand in hand. If he had proof, and thought that proof would sway you to his side, he would've told you by now – instead you realize that he's being cautious so as not to make you too suspicious, same as you.

He won't say something out loud if it would come off as a pipe dream or a baseless accusation, much like you've kept your time powers to yourself because it's too wild to be believed and perhaps out of some worry of what both your enemies and allies might do with that information.

But as it stands, you know a few things that Claude doesn't, for all that he's probably doing his best to sleuth them out just about now – such as what Rhea actually did with you.

You supposed that she expected you, and your mother before you, to simply be a baby-sized vessel for Sothis and nothing more, or that she assumed that 'you' were simply Sothis with amnesia and that all she'd have to do would be to nudge you into recovering your memories, her endeavor failed when you simply grew up to be another, separate person like your mother before you, for all that you were more 'successful' in the sense that you were able to speak with Sothis and receive her power. Perhaps she _could_ have taken over your body at any point if she had wanted to, but she didn't. She might not have remembered it at the time, but seeing as she once had many children of her own such as Rhea and Seteth, it's not all too surprising that she would have refused to effectively kill an innocent baby. Maybe you unconsciously reminded her own her own children; She was always scolding you, but also comforted you during hard times… it's actually somewhat sad to consider, given how she was often harshly critical of Rhea.

You think that Sothis probably would have been more sympathetic if she had known that that's her daughter, but at the same time, it's proof of just how far she must have fallen from her beginnings as a noble saint…

You're only just beginning to understand how much.

Because Claude is right. He probably doesn't know just how right he really is.

You'd rather not believe this, but neither you can't really think of any better explanation.

Rhea… wasn't just passively hoping that her experiment had worked out after all, or hanging on to that hope in denial.

She brought you down there to _kill _you.

There's not really any other way to put it: The reason she was so giddy leading up to the ritual, and the reason for her disappointment once nothing happened when you sat on that throne… is that she was hoping that all the thoughts, emotions, wants and memories that constituted you as a person would be extinguished in that instant, leaving you a blank empty meat puppet for someone else to possess.

Whatever transformation she was hoping to occur, she was actively looking to bring it about. That's why she recruited you so that she could keep an eye on you. That's why she made sure to keep you away from your father, make sure he's always busy with dangerous missions.

You're not sure that you can accuse her of falsely winning your trust, if she had thought all along that you essentially _were_ Sothis in some dormant, sleeping state, but she must have known that she would be erasing what your father considered to be his child.

It would be one thing if your existence had simply been an unintended side effect of an attempt to bring back someone else when you would never have existed otherwise, but she was definitely looking to destroy _you_, the young adult you that stumbled past her doors following some effusive string of fate.

The realization sinks down your body like a cold, sobering shower.

It's an old, scabbed-over wound by now, and this realization merely adds insult to injury at this point. Maybe you would be mad if you were a normal human, you don't know, but to you it feels like you can't really summon any hot feeling because you already know that her attempt will be futile. It's not like she poses any real threat to your life now, you know that you'll sit on the throne and nothing will happen. There's little reason left to get mad on your own behalf.

If there's much feeling at all it's a resigned sort of pity, yet another confirmation that yes, she never cared about you as a person after all.

It's old news at this point; you're much more concerned about what she's doing with the rest of the country.

As all those many threads, questions and mysteries whirr round and round your mind, you don't realize how you're getting embroiled in a different sort of destiny, until one day you're sitting on your desk trying to focuss on correcting the Golden Deer's various homework.

You remain absent in mind when you hear a knock on the door, even as you're responding on automatic, fully expecting no one else but Claude or maybe Seteth.

But it's neither of them.

The heavy door reveals none other than Edelgard when you pull it aside.

She says she has something to discuss with you.

You'd wonder what in the world she's doing here, if you had not seen this sight before:

This is just like that time she came to ask you about her missing dagger, the exact same sight of her framed by the door arch, the same travel bag slung over her shoulder, the same flower in her hair which you extended to her on her recent birthday out of the same habitual courtesy, with this slight look of tension to her shoulders which she would otherwise keep straight.

Except this time, you had not been nearly as stiff around her throughout the year, nor nearly as reluctant to respond to her attempts at conversation.

You couldn't exactly think of her as a lurking traitor anymore, and it must have influenced how you acted, be it ever so slightly -

This time, she turns to you with a rapid motion as soon as you'd close behind her, and speaks to you with a slight, reflexive half-bow what clearly took her an uncharacteristic amount of effort to lay bare:

"_Professor Byleth, I- I like you!"_

Under the circumstances, you think you might be forgiven for gaping like a fish.

It's not every day that your recurring arch-nemesis confesses their love for you, even if she's still a schoolgirl with purple ribbons in her hair, and not yet the unrelenting icy-faced, horn-crowned young conqueror who'd brought an entire continent to its knees – actually, that's not quite right. She's already sneaking around with her mask on, orchestrating the political theater for her eventual takeover.

But there she is before you, grasping the strap of her bag with a slight tremble in her hands, a certain pinkness undeniably obvious on her pale, near-translucent complexion.

This is…

Actually not as surprising as it could have been, to be honest.

You already knew that she had great respect for you, that she lamented not getting you on her side even onto death. For those generally inclined to crushes, a crush is often a common side effect of that sort of admiration, nothing more, nothing less.

Still, to think that all along, she used to feel this way about you...

You think back to the first time around and your many tea times in the gardens; In the end you must confess that this could surely have been construed as such a situation, now that you think of it – back then you were still very inexperienced with forming bonds or your feelings, so you can't really say what, if anything, touched your immovable heart yet; You can't really recapture your naive impression from them, not without superimposing the complexities of what you know now.

She never made such a confession back then, not even towards the end of the term… but you might have your answer right then. Despite all, she must somehow have hoped that it might not be the end after all.

You had dismissed all those moments long ago, thinking yourself used and betrayed and everything you'd seen to be fake, but last time around at the latest, you'd since come to realize that she was probably simply pursuing her own justice. She must have felt just like you, really: Making you her enemy must have been the last thing she wanted, but she was still ready to stand against you because as far as she was concerned, you were on the wrong side. An evil upon the world, clinging to 'unreasonable ideas of justice', not necessarily out of your own fault. A pawn of the goddess, she once called you. You're not sure about the goddess, but you were most certainly _Rhea's _pawn back then. Both of you pawns then?

All things considered, you must have broken her heart pretty bad back then. You weren't the only one who felt betrayed then – especially since you made off with all her friends (bar Hubert) who would otherwise have backed her loyally like they did against Dimitri.

She sure did a great job at hiding it – no, she never concealed it at all. What she did was soldier on regardless, giving up whatever she must, crushing her personal feelings, pursuing her justice no matter the personal cost.

When you think about it, it's actually achingly tragic – if not outright noble, in a way.

Well, you've got to react somehow, pull yourself back to the right-here, right-now of this particular world and timeline.

"Uh..."

You're very, very stumped.

She awaits your answer like a blow. Most likely, she must have been steeling yourself for what she knew it would be, knowing well that it would probably still sting one way or another.

"I'm… very... honored that you think so. But you do know that I'm technically still faculty here, right? You were placed under the care of the Church when you came here, and with your status this could outright cause a diplomatic incident-"

You're not sure how convincing it would be to speak about wanting to avoid the appearance of improper coercion or favored treatment, considering that she could probably have you executed without much of an explanation next time you set foot on Adrestian soil; Professor or not, you're still legally a commoner.

But you needn't have worried. She catches your drift immediately. Good, old, reasonable Edelgard.

"I understand. I-I've been expecting this outcome, of course..." she assures you, in her best class-president-leader voice, though you know her well enough to tell that her wavering heart isn't quite cooperating with the mature reasoning of her mind right now. You can almost feel some sort of metaphysical tally of points decreasing, marked by a characteristic sound effect.

"I just wanted to tell you, before the year ends, because I didn't want to spend my life regretting that I never did."

"That's very mature of you."

"Hardly. I apologize for putting you in this sort of uncomfortable situation."

"_Edelgard. _It's perfectly normal for a healthy young woman to have a crush once in a while."

"For an ordinary young woman, perhaps. But I will soon be ascending the imperial throne. The emperor must stand alone, relying on no one. As such, I can't afford such indulgences…"

"So you wanted to tell me this because today is your last chance to act like an ordinary young woman? In that case, it's not necessarily bad that you did so, you know."

You take a seat on your best and gesture for her to take the chair at your desk.

"I wish I could give you some more advice on that, but when it comes to that topic, I'm not really the right person to ask. Maybe Manuela would be better suited to this. I really wasn't lying when I told you that I had no kind of experience with such things."

"Actually, you _haven't_ told me before." she says thoughtfully.

Oops. You slipped up. Even you can tell that there's an odd sort of mood in the room now, the scent of secrets being disclosed and unspoken feelings teetering just below the surface – You'd best clarify any misunderstandings.

"Honestly, even if I didn't work here right now, I wouldn't really know how to respond to a confession like that. I'd probably be asking you for more time to think it over. I never really got close to anyone before I started working here, not in that way or any other. It was always just me and my father. Our mercenary band was my whole world, fighting, and commanding our men was my whole life. That's probably how I got good to be good enough at that to be giving you lessons though I'm only a little older, and pretty clueless at everything else. Compared to you and Claude, I probably don't have that much actual life experience. You already know what's important to you and to what purpose you want to devote your lives – I'm still searching for something like that. Even my becoming a mercenary was simply because that's what my father used to do."

"And then, you got roped into being a professor?" she asks, managing a thin smirk at least.

"I wouldn't put it that way. I do enjoy my work. I experienced much that I wouldn't have otherwise. And it's a way to help people, in my own way. But that doesn't mean that I'll stay one forever. I'm pretty sure Claude is still trying to recruit me as a general for the Alliance or something."

"And will you take him up on his offer?"

Straight to the point as usual.

"I'm not sure yet. I might. I suppose it would depend on what he wants my help _for. _If it's a righteous cause, I'd have no reason to refuse._"_

"So that's how it is..." she says with a slight, formal smile. Perhaps she's reflecting on what she might have said to better sway you at Remire Village. "Well, if you do accept, I confess that I shall be slightly jealous of him. N-Not because of what we discussed earlier. You're a very capable and dedicated person. No doubt that you'll be a great asset to any faction you might associate yourself with."

And that was that. There were a few more pleasantries and one last cup of bergamot tea before she departed, leaving you behind in a cherished garden of yesterdays and neverweres.

Maybe it's you who ought to be jealous of her (and Claude) for being so self-directed.

Even so: Your impression wasn't wrong, you think; You mean the very first one you had, that she and you are similar. Both of you adored, charismatic leaders (with perhaps a bit of a dorky side in private). Both of you stoic pillars of strength. Both of you frightening generals. Both of you often perceived as somewhat distant, working hard so that your feelings might reach the ones you care about in other ways.

What cruelty of destiny then, that you were fated to be foes.

As the only one to wield the same power as you, she truly seemed made to be your perfect enemy.

But was it truly inevitable? You think back to that first timeline, when you stood side by side for a little under a year. It felt natural enough, back then. You remember that one time just after you'd won the battle of the eagle and lion, when she said she no longer wished to recruit you as a warrior for the empire, but looked only for your continued guidance. You had effectively netted yourself a possible position as a royal adviser right there.

It's hard to say now, with eyes of hindsight, if you would have accepted it. But probably yes. You don't know why you wouldn't have – certainly not because you were such a devout believer that you wished to keep working to the church. It wouldn't have been a bigger change than going from mercenary to professor, and you would have been able to keep working with all the former Black Eagles. Maybe then you would have receives this confession somewhat later, when you were surer of yourself, and Edelgard already crowned. Perhaps something could have come of it, or maybe not, but you think that you would have remained close either way.

Yes, you think you could have lived like that, if only she didn't have to go and start a war.

...

"Soooo… Edelgard _likes_ you? You mean _like_ like?"

Claude finds that bit of gossip more amusing than anything else. Somehow – well informed as he is – he must've heard that she'd gone to your quarters and that you spoke with her for a while. Maybe he was antsy that she'd get her hands on your promising human capital since she never officially rescinded her offer to recruit you for the empire. Whatever it was he suspected it seems that he was on the wrong track for once cause he burst out laughing once he heard it, that said, if he _could_ laugh about it that might be a sign that he was no longer as suspicious of you. Indeed his wide, surprised eyes are kind of adorable.

"Looks like poor Dimitri never stood a chance!"

He doesn't realize just how right he is. "Still," he adds, once he's calmed down somewhat, "I would've thought that she's way too focused and serious to bother about that sort of stuff. But I guess deep down she's not so different from anybody else…

If you weren't one of the few people around here who's even more popular than she is, that would've earned you a lot of enemies. Dimitri's too darn proper and repressed to ever act on it, but I'm pretty sure Hubert and Ferdinand both have their sights on her in their own weird ways. Actually, I think even Dorothea hit on her once or twice."

"Dorothea I can believe, but ...Ferdinand? Isn't he always trying to compete with her? Besides, he's set to be the next Prime Minister, I don't think it's anything that simple."

"Few things are _ever_ as simple as having just a single cause. But whether he realizes it or I think he's also trying to impress her. I mean, even I have to admit that she's got her charms - But more importantly, she tends to be the type of strong leader figure that tends to inspire a certain... fanaticism in others. This world being what it is, I guess you could see how many would be drawn to a leader like that – In a way, it's not so different to how others might cling to gods. Though personally, I've never seen the appeal in surrendering all you to someone greater than you. In the end, everyone that has ever been elevated or worshiped or treated as a hero remains just an ordinary person, as fallible as anyone else..."

"So what do _you_ think a leader should be like?"

"You're getting right to the point there teach – The truth is probably that no single person has what it takes to decide every single thing by themselves. I don't much believe in virtuous heroes. Still people are born in different situations, with more or less influence than others. So I think the best you can do if you wind up in such a position of influence is to use it as best as you can to encourage others to think and decide for themselves, for example by giving others the freedom and knowledge that they need to do so."

"Freedom and knowledge, huh? That's not a bad ideal, if I might call it that."

"No, you've got me, guilty as charged. Turns out I'm just a soppy dreamer deep down inside. Although-..."

"What?" you ask, bluntly, once he trails off. He seems to be used to it by now.

"You know how I said I don't believe in Virtuous Heroes? I stand by that. But you know, the closest thing I've ever seen in real life to that sort of virtuous hero is probably _you_, teach."

"I'm not that special."

"Which is _exactly_ what a cliched hero of justice would say. It downright pisses me off sometimes. But you know, the fact that someone like you actually exists_ does_ make my secret soppy dreams look less soppy by comparison, so I guess I ought to thank you… After all you've done, there's hardly anyone in these walls who doesn't look up to you. Everyone worships the ground Rhea walks on because she's the archbishop, which makes her a standin for the importance that everyone's got pitched on the Seiros religion, but you just came here last year and you're nearly as popular as she is."

"Because I can wield the sword of the creator?"

To your surprise, he shakes his head.

The feeling looks subtle on your face, but you _are_ taken aback, not in the least because you think this answer would have turned out very different if you had asked him just a few months earlier.

"Nah. By itself, that would only give you the same sort of dogmatic obedience that Rhea gets. But I think that many here would follow you even if you decided to go against her."

"That's some dangerous speculation right there."

"Maybe – but to have such influence on some of Fodlan's best and brightest… some would say that it's _you_ who's the dangerous one. That alone wouldn't be that strange for someone who's been a warrior and a leader in real life and death settings all their life, but it's more than that. You put people at ease. Everyone feels more certain when you're around- Ignatz, Marianne, Lorenz..."

"Lorenz too?"

"_Especially_ Lorenz. He acts all high and mighty but when you get down to it he's not made of very strong stuff. He seems like exactly the sort of person who would be drawn to follow after strong leaders."

"I'll tell him you said that."

"No, you won't." He's probably right about that.

You sigh. The earlier, more serious words simmer in your mind, marinating as the more lighthearted exchanges occupied your attention.

Somehow, in all the multiple lives you had lived, you never found the time right to voice those thoughts. The cat's already out of the bad, the doubts have been said out loud and the veils lifted, nor would you be shattering anyone's illusions, so why not?

"I've been told things like that before. Many have called me a hero. Others, a demon. Some have even done both," and you're thinking more than a little of Dimitri with that last part. "It just happens and I don't really understand it, cause I'm still just the same me. I'm-"

You nearly reached for the words 'only human', but with the knowledge you have now you're not sure that you're technically right. "I just wanted to help where I can."

You reflect on that hastily assembled statement, and find it to be very true. For most of your life you never really questioned yourself or the world around you, but now that you've got Claude pressing you for all these answers, it's increasingly impossible to evade the questions.

You began this because you wanted to stake out if _he_ could be trusted, but after all this what you wish the most is that you could make him trust _you._

All of this is really making you realize your limitations even after you've technically liberated an entire continent twice over. All you still don't know. All you've never experienced.

"What I'm trying to explain to you, what I _have_ been trying to explain is - It's not that I'm hiding things from you, and I don't think I'm better than anyone either… it's just hard to understand things that even I don't fully understand that well. It would be ridiculous to say that I'm just like anyone else, but all I ever wanted is to be helpful. That's why I started helping out in my father's band to begin with. He went through all this trouble to look after me on his own – more than I ever realized, probably, now that I know he's been keeping me away from the church, so I decided that I would help as well. I've never been very good at expressing myself, so it's no surprise that people tended to be wary of me – so all I could properly do for them, to show that I'm on their side, is to help them, or to listen to their problems or their stories..."

Claude, so far, appeared to be listening intently. Behind his eyes, the gears of his mind were ticking away, absorbing each new grain of information without yet forming a conclusion.

"And let me guess, in an organization like a mercenary band, _everyone _has a story."

"It's not so different from the monastery."

"I see… I get what you mean." You can't tell if you got through to him or not. He might still be thinking it over. In a sense it's refreshing. He may admire you, even find you an inspiration, but he isn't going to go and pull you on any sort of pedestal "Thanks for sharing this with me."

"Edelgard isn't the only one who's just an ordinary mortal in the end… So if you're looking for a miracle worker to make all your schemes happen, you might be disappointed."

At first, he laughs at this. "Don't you worry teach. You've been more than helpful enough for me, even as an ordinary mortal. And besides, I've come to like you quite a bit for your own sake, regardless of your many very useful qualities~…

Which is why I've got a word of advice for you. You might not have been raised with the Seiros religion, but you still grew up in Fodlan where it's influence reaches to every corner – You're very big on this 'blessed are the meek' thing in this country. There's this idea that a hero is someone who humbly accepts their lot and turns the other cheek – of course, what people preach and what they actually follow are two pairs of shoes. Few actually live up to that ideal. But it's still _an ideal _that exists in people's minds. 'Have faith and trust not in your own understanding'. That's how the people in Fodlan think of a hero. When they think of heroes, they picture someone like that. Someone like his Princeliness, or like you – ironically enough, you might be a lot closer to that ideal than many believers. But that's all it is. An ideal. An idea. In other places, they have different ideas of what heroes are like. In some other places, they picture heroes a little differently… Like for example, they might think of a hero first and foremost of someone with great valor who attains great glory."

"Or a hero who's a schemer?" Your toneless reply somehow only serves to make your slight teasing more apparent. You're not like you once were. It starts to be noticeable when you're doing the blank face on purpose.

But Claude's not daunted in the least: "Why not? There's nothing wrong with being helpful and devoted to others, or with being valiant and strong. Both are good qualities sometimes. But in the wrong place, trying to be valiant and tough will just lead you to act stubborn and irrational, and trying to be helpful might lead you be deceived and get you taken advantage of. A hero who gets themselves killed for the sake of being tough or honorable can't win anything or help anyone. So it makes no sense to insist that there's only one way to do things right.

It's laudable that you wish to be helpful to others, but that doesn't mean that you have to do whatever they say without ever questioning their motives."

Your eyes narrow. You decide to go right for the elephant in the room: "Are you speaking about the Church?"

"I'm not talking about anything in particular. Just looking out for a very special friend of mine."

The admission hangs in the air for a moment, heavy as lead;

Then he leans back with his hands behind his unruly curls, and disperses the thick atmosphere by cracking a joke:

"Figures that I'd want to keep you around, after all you've just informed ,e of the iron princess' only weakness! We might want to think about how we could use that little fact to our advantage~"

"Something like that wouldn't work on her."

"You're probably right..."

"Claude." you say then. His joking facade evaporates in the commendably brief split-second it takes him to note that you are dead serious.

"You said something about… being cautious as the Holy Tomb. So I want you to know that – if anything should happen to me, there, or sometime later, you should wait for me."

"Wait for you how?"

"Just… wait. I'll be back, okay? No matter what happens, or how impossible it seems, no matter how we might be separated."

"You know that you're not doing a very convincing job at making it look like you don't know something I don't, right teach?"

"Maybe. But I'll still be back. Remember what you said, about the Millenium Festival, and how we were all going to meet up there no matter what? I can't tell or promise you anything else right now, I really can't, even if I wanted to. But I _can_ tell you that I'll be there five years from now, come hell or high water, even if the festival is canceled or if it starts raining fire from the sky."

"That's a bold promise there. But somehow, despite myself, I feel like I should believe you."

...

you're none too surprised when Claude outright admits that he tried to get in here by himself. Between his speculations of whatever powers the opening mechanisms of the holy tomb (He always does ask the right questions) and his remarks about hearing Rhea and Seteth arguing, you don't have any doubts left.

This school more and more resembles a maggoty apple in your mind, I mean you had Dimitri in the bushes looking for intel on the enemy, Claude in the walls, Edelgard's soldiers lurking in the underground passages, Linhard was probably sneaking around here somewhere too…

When the imperial army shows up as expected, Lysithea doesn't need long how to figure out how they got in.

Claude, too, immediately assesses the situation: "Grave Robbers."

You suppose that the 'Flame Emperor' and her army could be classed as such.

Takes one to know one. Dimitri would never have tolerated anyone disrespected any sort of holy ground, but Claude, you think, would not be deterred from such a purely sentimental crime that might have hurt people's feelings but created no living casualties. Not that it matters much, because Edelgard got here first. Not that it's a fair comparison – that sort of feat is probably easier to pull off when you've got a whole army backing you instead of acting by yourself.

Might as well be water under the bridge as far as it concerns Claude; He quickly adapts his plan; If he couldn't get the information from the stones themselves, he might as well get it straight from Edelgard, so he makes a beeline straight for her and begins his interrogation right away, parrying whatever pesky axes are swung his way to hinder him.

When she proves too taciturn for his tastes, he succumbs to the temptation he'd been itching with from the get-go and goes straight for her mask -

The face behind it, however, does not seem to have been something he anticipated.

His surprise seems quite genuine.

Today, you learned that even the unflappable Claude from Riegan can be blindsided.

He expected to oppose a small underground organization with tendrils in many places, but the outright large-scale involvement of another faction seems to have thrown all his calculations for a loop.

You fight her off but fail to capture her, same old same old.

Claude looks more grave than you've ever seen him. Those excellent instincts of his are squaling in alarm. He's more right than he knows he is, the gears of history _are_ turning.

But though the events are unfolding much the same it does make a marked difference that you're going through this motions at _his_ side, because both Rhea and Dimitri would consider it unthinkable to even look to a reason for such an action, as if any explanation would be an attempt to justify it.

Claude, however… Well, he knows to clarify that he can't agree with such brute force approaches lest he be misunderstood (which mean's he's switched on his political rhetoric, carefully measuring what he says; If he weren't being careful he might 'forget' to sound appropriately appalled even if he really was.) but though he can't agree, he's wondering why Edelgard might do this.

I mean, so were you and Dimitri back in your days, but when it comes to Claude, something as simple as 'because she's evil' isn't going to cut it.

He has many, many questions. "She knows secrets, " he notes, "And Rhea too."

His concern for the future and his disdain for the bloodshed are very very real but even so the depths of his eyes light up with a sparkle; His thoughts and motions slowly take on some manner of a hound who has smelled blood. It must be tantalizing for him, really: Two people who have all the answers he seeks are right there, and _they're not telling him._

He knows better than to jeopardize his chances with heroics. Instead he fires up his mind to process whatever new morsels of truth he has been given.

On brand for his long-standing interest in the relics, the stolen crest stones take center stage in his pondering. What are they, really?

Even you don't really know this though the one in your chest is pretty much responsible for the better part of your existence.

Edelgard called them "Infernal power masquerading as medicine"… and after all you know now, you're inclined to agree. Not only do they apparently _eat_ people, you can't say that anything good had come of the obsession with them.

But even though she said that, she did take them herself, ostensibly to use them and their 'infernal power' for her own designs. Perhaps they were the pay that the Agarthans wanted for backing her – or the means to it. You've seen that they can be used to create demonic beasts… is it that? Then again, there were a couple of crest stones in that big axe of hers. That's another reason why she might have stolen them.

…

Edelgard's proclamation sounds very different, now that you know much more about the church than you ever did any time that you wound up as its leader. Shows how much you were really trusted, or maybe just how little you really knew.

Where is the lie when she speaks of corruption and deception, of cover-ups and the upkeep of harmful institutions? How are you supposed to trust an institution wit so many secrets hidden in its closets?

The speech is the same as it's always been, but your eyes are opened now, like when you learn a foreign language, suddenly turning gibberish into words. Being in the present of Claude's inquisitive mind has opened your eyes and ears as well.

Of course you're not just suddenly start believing the next best person's gibberish just because you started to have doubts about the church – this goes for Claude as much as it pertains to Edelgard.

At worst, she may simply be using the untrustworthy church as a pretext for her conquest; the way she spins it still seems a little self-serving, especially the part about the other countries being illegitimate offshoots – she might be playing to the revanchist sentiments among the imperial nobles there, which is a dangerous thing to let fester even if it were just for the sake of politics.

Claude, for one thing, had many snappy cynical comments about military rule to dispense. For all his scheming ways, you're beginning to realize that he's not actually all that ruthless. He clearly endured much hardship, but unlike Dimitri or Edelgard, he had both parents with him until he went and left the nest of his own accord. There isn't the same sort of edge and desperation behind his actions. He's got whole other sorts of cracks in his heart, but valuing ones's own life, and those of others, is a perfectly normal, profoundly human thing, notions of chivalry be damned.

Still. Edelgard's claims, while convenient, are hardly implausible. The Church _did_ mediate in the establishment of the Kingdom and the Alliance – but weren't they just trying to keep the peace? Could they really have so much influence? Didn't those revolts still involve people who wanted to rise up for their very own reasons?

No. You know that they've been hiding and manipulating things behind the scenes, orchestrating plots and framings like the one that claimed the life of Christophe Gaspard.

Besides… there's something Manuela once said, about how the Monastery was conveniently located in the middle of the three countries even though it predated both the kingdom and the Alliance by many centuries.

The evidence was practically staring you in the face, out of every single map you've been pouring over in every single war meeting.

Still, even if you acknowledged that the Church had its dark sides and was in dire need of reform, did she have to start a war over it? Wasn't there anything she could have done that didn't claim the lives of many soldiers and peasants as collateral damage?

Deposing her own father by force still seemed iffy though… but what do you know? He might as well be the one who did whatever it is that was done to her, whatever it was that she thought was akin to death. Maybe he deserved it – it's not hard to believe with all the examples of less-than-stellar parenting you've been made to witness. If only you'd spent more time investigating the empire's inner politics while you had the chance. It's not like you knew there would be a war, you were told your task in this would be to instruct these people in the proper use of swords.

Claude's removed, political perspective might have seemed distant and univested to some, but there is a certain clarity in it. It strikes you that he summarizes the events how they might be described in some distant day's history books, from a bird's eye view, when none of the present factions would be all that relevant to the present anymore, or like a conflict in a distant country, as if he didn't have a dog in this fight: He says she sent out a call to the lords that rule the land and the people themselves, to stay out of her way or back the church and become her enemy by extension.

Never before would you have taken the first option seriously, not had it seemed thinkable not to back the church – the land of Fodlan was full of believers to whom that institution was precious, besides, it goes without saying that when someone is attacked you've got to help them, especially if they're innocent… but were they innocent? Even if they weren't, this was still an act of unpremeditated aggression. She was clearly out to conquer the whole country, or that's what they all thought… but they thought that, in part, because it seemed unthinkable not to back the church.

But from a more detached perspective, say, that of Claude, wouldn't it be conceivable to see the Church and the Empire as two equal evils? Or not even evils. Just opponents. Misguided ones, or just players pursuing their interests. Both had resorted to shady, unethical actions. I mean, Rhea had some nerve to be talking about 'not tolerating this violence'. Backing the church might be the considered the chivalrous thing, the historical obligation, but from a pragmatic perspective, you could describe it as risking your life and limb for an untrustworthy faction.

No one had believed that Edelgard would seriously refrain from crushing someone who "stayed out of her way", as she asked, but didn't she do _just that_ the last two times as long as the alliance remained neutral? If she genuinely believed in what she was doing, why wouldn't she honor that agreement? Actually now that you think of it, both in your first and second attempts, Claude was the one to attack first.

Who knows what he's going to do this time around.

Whatever he might have been planning, it's clear that the unforeseen eventuality of Edelgard's attack had put a pretty big damper on it.

But, as he makes sure to tell you, he's not the sort of man to just roll over and die. So the Golden Deer and yourself get to work to ready your weapons.

…

None of his apparent frustration does anything to dent that sheer gall of his, though.

"Here she is—Her Majesty!" he comments when they meet on the battlefield. "Looking pleased as a dog with a stick! What exactly happened to make you this way?"

You'd like to know this, too.

But she remains unfazed, resolute, unshakeable. You're not goig to get a plea for pity out of her:

"I'm simply seeing through a promise I made to myself a long time ago."

She's more open than you would have expected – Claude, in turn, won't be dissuades from holding something much resembling a normal conversation between the blows, despite or maybe _because _of the serious matter. In their own way they're both hard-boiled enough to do this; Dimitri was wholly aghast when he charged out the gates earlier and quite unable to be talked to.

"Isn't this much force excessive?" asks Claude, not without a hint of real concern but still alltogether to much like they're casually brainstorming policy proposals. He almost gets a bit mouthy: "Thanks to you, my own long-held ambitions are nearly destroyed!"

"If you don't want them to be destroyed completely, I suggest you turn tail and flee."

You're sure that must have stung; more than you, or even Edelgard herself could probably understand at that point. But he's still not too proud to turn and flee when the evacuation is sounded.

…

You feel that there is a choice upon you;

Closer and closer it looms, while you still lack the information you would need to make it in good conscience.

You still don't know Claude's deal and he's far too sharp for you to press him for answers without his getting suspicious. So you turn elsewhere.

"There is a war coming, so I need to know… What's your impression of Claude? Do you think we can trust him?"

Hilda looks at you in disbelief. "Why're you asking _me_ that? I don't really know anything about statesmanship..."

"But you know about people. You noticed something fishy about Monica right away. Ypu can be quite observant sometimes- "

"Please don't, professor. If you keep saying that, then _everyone_ will expect me to know such things. I might even be chosen to represent my house..."

"Then I'm asking in secret. As your friend. You might consider it gossip."

You're faintly aware that this probably sounded quite awkward coming from you.

"Well it's bad to gossip about your friends behind their backs-"

That, in turn, would have been more convincing coming from anyone else.

"I mean – I get why you'd have your suspicions. Claude hardly ever says what he really thinks. He keeps his cards close to his chest. But he's still our friend. He might be a schemer, but in his own way, he's actually pretty reliable. He comes through for you when you need him, and he does keep his promises. I'm sure we can trust him."

Not too long ago, you would have thought such a statement naive, but now you know Hilda better than you used to. She might have looked quite frivolous, being concerned with makeup, fashion and gossip while everyone else around her was invested in noble ambitions. But after three times of seeing everyone here run themselves ragged for their high ideals and all the suffering that came out of what this society values, you're beginning to think that Hilda might actually be one of the most sensible, mature people currently enrolled at this institute. Even if this crazy society were altogether different, people would still make friends, flirt with potential mates and make friends. In a way, the sort of everyday enjoyment she pursues is much more real than anyone else's lofty political ideals. So you're hesitant to just dismiss her statement.

And you don't know if Hilda has spent enough time with you to learn to read you, or if you're the one who has become more transparent, but she very much noticed that, and doubles down with a smirk: "Besides I don't think you need to worry at all. By now I've gotten very good at telling Claude's fake smile from his real one, and lately, when he's been talking with you, it's always been real."

...

The last time you ran after Rhea while she was holding off the imperial army on her own, it was definitely to protect her – The first time, maybe, out of actual burning warm attachment, then, at least out of resigned obligation or as a matter of principle.

Now, as you stumble down the hill retracing your own steps of old down the old repeated refrain of events, aware with every second that your precious time is running out, it occurs to you that maybe, like Cyril, like Catherine, you should be screaming instead – for answers, for justice, for any goddamn indication that you're anything more to her than convenient warm bodies.

You don't know. You're half figuring you'll decide when you get to her, once you confront her, far away from the eyes of her followers before whom she would never reveal herself -

But in the end, you never have to make that choice, not yet.

For now, your old friend the gaping ravine takes it out of your hands.

You're not as frustrated as you could have been when you realize that you're losing your footing, because you understand now at last that you never could have prevented this war. It was more or less inevitable will all the instability raging through this land. Rhea's own capital and base of operations was infiltrated by agents of at least three different factions; The Kingdom was on the verge of collapse, the all but mired empire in the hands of an ancient foe.

Between Dimitri's preexisting grudge against the empire and his lonesome pursuit of vengeance, the Agarthan's plots, the various revolts against the Church, the Church's own questionable actions, Edelgard's ambitions and _Claude_ sneaking around, both Fodlan at large and Garreg Mach as a microcosm of it were sheer powderkegs on the brink of explosion – in fact, you wonder if there's _any more _secret conspiracies you ought to be aware of. At this point you wouldn't even be surprised if there was a secret town hidden under the monastery or something.

As someone who valued freedom and life itself, Claude could certainly not condone this campaign of forceful military subjugation, but when he spoke about his ambitions being crushed, he wasn't so decrying Edelgard's takeover as that he was simply dismayed that she had_ beaten him to the punch_ before his _own_ schemes could be realized.

If Edelgard hadn't tried to nap the sword of the creator when she did, _Claude_ would have swiped it. He had already scouted out that secret hiding place near the holy mausoleum – the same one he helpfully mentioned when your class was planning to stand guard there. Even if Edelgard had never declared war on the church, even if Dimitri never made any boasts about what he'd like to do with her head, Claude would still have made his move, seeking whatever it was that he sought -

You never quite found out. There simply wasn't enough time to be trusted and peel back all his layers – by this time, Dimitri had already fully disclosed his tragic backstory, Edelgard had long since made her offer at Remire, and, in hindsight, generously hinted at her true sympathies.

But Claude? No such luck.

Your only consolation is that he might conceivably say the same thing about you.

* * *

While El has a very special place in my heart and will probably always be my personal favorite, Claude is a pretty close second. He's such a deep, layered guy? I love his dynamic with Byleth? (#BroTP)

Why did we get Ferdinand, Felix and Sylvain, you wonder? Free Real Estate. Paralogues. Foreshadowing. To emphasize certain things? Because I want to use certain lines in part II. Also, I just think they're neat. Meanwhile Anette, Linny and Petra just strike me as the most "natural" recruitee choices for Verdant Wind. There's cute supports and overlapping philosophies.

Some of Claude's 2cents on heroism were inspired by that time I watched this 80s TV show on the ancient Indian epics. The Avatar Krishna is in many ways a figure not unlike Jesus, the embodiment of a god of order and protection. He is also a trickster. That's very different from the western conception where the heroes are meek and helpful whereas the bad guys are full of guile and deception. There's a strong idea of "honorable yes but stupid no" that you still see in Indian culture to this day for better or for worse. The closest thing in the west is the modern German constitution which was deliberately designed for efficiency & idiot-proofness over idealism because look what exploitable holes did last time, but that's an idea so far from the christian cultural mindset that it took ppl here till the 20th century to think of it.

This also went in the opposite direction sometimes – if Lord Rama were in a greek or roman play, he would not have gone into exile but seized the city once it became plain that the citizens supported him and you wouldn't have had this plot twist (at least it was one to me) that his half-brother turns out to be good & loyal. It was rather fun to guess which things would be predictable because of universals of the human psyche, and which would be different.

And that's sort of the role that Claude has, being someone who comes in to this dysfunctional dogmatic world with different (if not necessarily better) preconceptions and ends up having a broader perspective because of it. Once you start to think of it even the middle ages & the ancient worlds had huge differences in how they thought of 'heroes'.

I also have a lot of feelings about how the profile from Cindered Shadows listed Byleth's interests as "helping & listening to people" and noted "being trusted" as one of their likes.

VW made for a natural turning in this story point because the Church's shadiness and Edelgard not being evil are amply hinted though not fully expounded upon. I mean some of Byleth's dialogue options are written as very much wanting to save Rhea, while Claude is kinda subtly and carefully trying to break it to them that she's not to be trusted – more on that next time.

When you really think about it, Edelgard is a lot like Homura from PMMM or A2 from Nier Automata: Someone who appears villainous at first because she is acting based on information that the main characters don't have at first, so her actions don't make sense. She starts out knowing a lot of the settings disturbing secrets from the get-go – that the entire world view is fake. And I mean that's not even so rare in our world for wide helds beliefs in society to turn out to be fake.

When I first played through it I was struck by what an immense sense of isolation that must be. She had this knowledge just dumped in her lap – most likely, no one will believe her. She's alone in this big illusion.

So a bit of what the timeloop format accomplishes here is to increasingly put Byleth in Edelgard's shoes. Another thing is that long before this started going anywhere near full on enemies-to-lovers territory, the _kind _of enemy that Edelgard appears to be sort of shifts. She goes from evil traitor to tragic monster to worthy opponent.

Essentially we're traversing the routes in order of black-and-white ness: SS is a basic b&w messianic story, AM is still fairly archetypical but we have flawed heroes & sad villains, VW is a lot more pragmatic & big picture and everyone is actors with agendas. CF then is a deliberate choice of that which is constructive over that which makes you feel like a hero.

I guess another thing 3H had is common with PMMM or NierAutomata (though those are otherwise very different media) is that everything you're told about the setting and what everything in it means is subverted to hell and back.

"You thought this was your classic medieval fantasy? Actually the medieval stasis is deliberately enforced on what's rly a post-apocalyptic setting, the heroes from the past were possibly actually bad guys " and so forth.


	7. Heathen

You are the ruler who brings the dawn of revolution, and she just so happens to be in your way.

...

As soon as you've trudged your way back to the monastery, you find Claude looking out over the valley, awaiting you there in the light, as casually as if you'd simply forgotten to rise early in the morning.

There is no fateful duel and certainly no gruesome heap of dead imperial soldiers – he simply greets you, and then he unpacks the snacks. Light smiles are on your faces, and it's a strange feeling – a moment of truth among the rubble that used to be the enduring icon of how this world used to be and the order of this land as people used to understand it.

You being here together feels right, and somehow transcendent.

You've worked with this version of him before, he was your ally when you fought alongside Dimitri, but you didn't know him so well then; You had no clue about the stories graven in his face.

He doesn't have the context to explain your resurgence like Seteth and Flayn did, but accepts your story pretty quickly. Normally you'd be mildly unsettled that he's come to read you so well that he's this confident that you're not lying, except that it's a definite upgrade, a long ways off from the young man who kept throwing jabs and questions at you with a hard gaze filled with suspicion.

To think that he was actually waiting here, convinced that you would actually return… so much for the 'embodiment of distrust'.

He claims he was just staking this place out 'cause it's a strategic location, but – no. Actually that makes a whole lot of sense and is definitely something he would do. You just beat him to it the last couple of times. Who knew that he was this close all along, probably right around the corner when you found Dimitri or when you were dueling Edelgard?

Despite everything, it feels like coming home.

As the shadow lengthen, he walks with you in the starlight and fills you in on many things, including the last… well, in a sense, it truly has been five years now, has it? Since you fell off that ravine. Maybe more. You wonder if making you live through this so many times was Sothis' idea of paying you back for those lost years.

You notice that Claude seems to pick up when your focus softens a little bit and skips ahead to the next thing that might possibly be new to you. You don't think he's concluded anything, but it is worrying how sharp his instincts are – or it would have been, once upon a time. Now you rather feel a pang of fondness.

It's not like you don't appreciate it, you've heard all of this already. You're not sure you want to hear again about Rhea being kidnapped, Dimitri being ousted and all that – it seems Cornelia had the whole clan massacred this time around, all the distant cousins included and all that. There is however never any mention of Lorenz leading the anti-imperial faction.

It is not long then until Claude puts his cards on the table, at long, long last. First he tells you his reasons right under that same, starry sky – then, once you've caught up with his classmates in the morning, he finally unveils his ambition – just to you at first, in the confidence of his chambers. A privilege indeed, seeing as some might consider this politically explosive news… but by 'some', none would mean you. If you look at this reasonably, with the common sense that should be obvious and ubiquitous yet often proves surprisingly hard to find in the circles where it counts, you would have to admit that he really wasn't kidding when he said that his secrets don't amount to much, surely not compared to Edelgard who went around referring herself as the vengeful shade of someone long dead.

So, he was born in another country? That's it? Duh! People live in different countries. That's barely noteworthy at all… if this world was a sane one. Seeing the prejudice that you've seen Dedue, Petra, Cyril and Shamir deal with, you can understand why he'd go out of his way to hide it, especially in his precarious position as the last hope of the ruling house. If his affiliation came to light, it could probably mean war between the two countries. People would probably look at him as some shady foreign actor looking to meddle in Fodlan's politics… which is basically what he really is, for all that you know that it's not as straightforward of that, and not remotely as sinister…

He always seemed the shadiest, and yet, out of all the house leaders, he's the only one who ostensibly came to Garreg Mach for all the expected reasons: To get a ruler's education, and to forge political Alliances.

To think that the secret ambition that he jealously guarded by any slimy, underhanded means was something as innocuous and selfless as word peace -

Or world domination; It all depends on how you look at it. It's like he sees the whole world from some high perch far above the maps. In a way, his vision is even more far-reaching and ambitious than even Edelgard's, and loftier still: She set out a clear, circumscribed goal which she looked to attain with such means as were clearly within her grasp in a foreseeable amount of time. Claude's plan – more a dream or a vision really – is downright utopian by comparison. It's a product of his spirit and intuition, not his rational mind – that, so he tells you, didn't really start thinking it feasible until he met you, and perhaps that's why his other self in the other worlds played a whole lot more defensively… but now he is in fact, actually grasping for the sun, longing to see that view he once glimpsed in his heart manifest before him with you at his side.

It's not like he doesn't have guts: To enroll at an institution that was specifically founded to oppose the threat of Almyra and use it to his advantage, to speak boldly and proudly of 'busting open Fodlan's throat', to essentially destroy the country as it is now and the long-established world-order with it…

He always felt a bit… lukewarm, to you, whenever you insisted that you must save Rhea, all the more insistent for the guilt that you felt over your inner resistance and resentment to the thought that she's a beloved figure though she might have wronged you personally:

"For better or worse, she liked you a lot… but I do not think it would be good for her to return as archbishop." "I certainly have things I want to ask her."…

When he starts speaking of a world without her, the right question finally dawns on her, and he seems to exhale in relief when you thought he would chide you:

"Do you hope she's dead?"

"That's a dangerous question, teach… I admit I have given it a lot of thought."

He's just lying to protect himself in a sense, just like Seteth or Flayn. He values life more than honor or glory, for is life not delighted in left or right of any border?

For all his secretiveness, he doesn't have the same sort of edge that Dimitri and Edelgard have – you can't say it's not admirable. He doesn't like Rhea but he's hardly hungry for her entrails or thirsty for her blood. He has the same sympathy for the archbishop that he would have for any other thinking being, even if she is his enemy… but there could be no doubt that he regards her as such.

Dimitri's words about how the crests and relics are ultimately necessary to maintain society evaporate in the light of the revelation that other countries seem to do perfectly fine without them – and did not Shamir as well find something odd in the local abundance of strange powers?

Someone as single-minded as Edelgard might be easily counted as biased, but here is Claude as well, accusing Rhea of much the same things – lies and distortions and keeping the populace convinced that this unjust system is the only way. If anything, what Claude levels at Rhea's feet is even worse: The land of your birth is a backward, isolated backwater and you didn't even know it, because like everyone else here you more or less thought of the borders as the limits of the world. Even Edelgard who is farseeing in time thought of it as such, of people with crests being allowed to "rule the world" and how "the world" could have only one ruler by which she meant that she must defeat Dimitri. You thought that if Rhea had one redeeming feature, it's what she was willing to do to protect outcasts like Shamir and Cyril. You're sure she really thinks of the monastery's residents as a flock for her to protect even if it meant getting captured and mauled by demonic beasts. She probably truly believes that, but her action look now like those of a Queen who throws crumbs to the impoverished peasantry while she pockets all the heavy taxes for her lavish palace.

You don't think she particularly cares about Fodlanese or Almyran or anything like that – you're all just humans to her, humans who work for her or against her. Whether you work for her as her underling or claim to worship her mother is probably all the same to her, Sothis is her family as much as her deity. She's probably acting out of fear, keeping the land that she controls apart from the chaotic heathens that she doesn't – but the consequence of that is still that the country is closed-off and that those of other faiths are viewed widely as uncivilized Barbarians.

It seems perverse to praise her for saving Cyril when her policies are the reason he was orphaned and mistreated in the first place, and similar things might be said about Catherine. Their devotion looks like that of battered spouses crawling back for more punishment.

There is prejudice in Almyra as well, as there is mistrust of the neighbors across the river in every little village; some of it is probably human nature. Yet there's places that have more of it than others, and hence conditions that foster its growth, or counteract it.

You think of all you have seen thus far, of Dedue, Cyril, and Petra, the whispering in the monastery about all the ones who did not welcome strangers from such places and all the horrors they endured, and the bitter wars between Faerghus and Sreng, all of it, on Rhea, and you would feel your heart harden if it wasn't already stone.

Almyra, too, has its own follies, and Claude is intent to dispense with them both. Fodlan, however, looked like the more urgent problem: Since the neighbors showed no sign of cleaning up their unstable powderkeg of a country, Claude decided that he would do it for them….

Left to his own devices, he might have raided the monastery himself, and if it wasn't for Edelgard declaring war or Dimitri swearing vengeance, you assume that he would have made his own move sooner or later. You don't think he would have started a military campaign of his own, that's not his style, he prefers subtler, more precise methods, surgical methods relying on diplomacy or subterfuge. He would not outright fight the church; Perhaps he would have assassinated Rhea and then pull on all his political strings to install some affiliate as the next archbishop; Maybe Marianne – who knows if he could have pulled it off, if he would have had the nerve to go through with that risk…

In the end, he didn't have to. Rhea had been removed _for_ him, the status quo of Fodlan had been thrown into disorder, and Claude would be damned if he did not take advantage of it. _That's_ why he attacked the empire: To seize the seat of power for his own grand purpose. That's what Ignatz meant when you fought him at Gronder in another lifetime, the Alliance Leader's ambition.

Ever since he first offered to lend you a hand and kept his word to you and Seteth, you never saw Claude's policy as more than a means to keep the Alliance together. You never considered that his stance of neutrality might be a reflection of his true beliefs.

But now he's telling you that the Church's current leadership must go, and the crests must go, and "Edelgard is probably trying to do something very similar.". Claude wouldn't be fooled by propaganda or the like – he really believes that. Maybe he always did – that, or he informed himself over these past five years.

He speaks of pulling in the church's support to sell fighting the Empire as a moral cause to the greater population… which implies that he doesn't think it _is_ a moral cause.

He sees nothing wrong with her goal. His critique is of her _public relations_: "Her methods are too extreme for the people to get behind." He has absolutely no personal beef with her at all, he simply thinks she can't do it – Or that he can do better. To be fair, she probably thinks the same.

Their dispute is not a disagreement in what to do, but at best, of how exactly to do it, or who's the best man for the job. A cynic might say that they're both simply struggling for the central power, a poet, that both were pursuing extraordinary goals with extraordinary means. Backed into a corner and left with the smallest territory, Claude had simply resorted to guile instead of brute strength:

Concealing his own goals from even his closest allies while using every dirty politician trick in the book. Professing a religion he didn't believe in, using them only for political benefit, offering to save Rhea whom he knew to be dangerous to get at influence and information, telling each ally and supporter what he wanted to hear, promising the merchant lax regulations and free trade to secure himself wealthy backers…

If you did not know him better you'd be unsure about who bought whom. Edelgard kept pragmatic secrets and swept unfavorable truths under the rug, but even she declared her intentions from the get-go: Her soldiers all knew what they were dying for and backed her precisely because they agreed with her convictions. But all those who rejected her values opposed her fiercely.

Claude, however, deceived people so that he would not have to fight them.

Edelgard gave all her classmates the option to bow out; Claude is blatantly using the knights and the Alliance lords… and yet he's not double-crossing anyone in the sense of leading them to harm – in fact, he has everyone's best interest at heart, a better country, a peaceful world, the least possible loss of life… but you can't deny that the knights and the Alliance Lords would probably reject the proposal of creating a more unified, more secular Fodlan. That is, they would reject it _now_, just as _you_ would have rejected leaving Rhea to her fate. You're the wedge he's using to take possession of the church, but you're also a friend he's looking out for. He was right to warn you against the church and he was doing it for your benefit as well, hoping that when the time is right, you would come around to his way of thinking all on your own, once you knew what he knew – and now he was looking to do the same both with the rest of the golden deer, and the world at large.

Because that's one of the most beautiful, most remarkable things about him: None of the prejudice he endured ever made him bitter or combative, though he had every right to be and no one could have blamed him for being angry. Instead he looks even at his worst experiences as something to be understood and analyzed – he doesn't so much blame people as he blames causes, patters and institutions.

Unlike Dimitri who saw people's inner beliefs as rather immutable, and Edelgard who had long since given up on being understood by others, Claude seemed to think of people and their beliefs as something much more malleable. Whereas the other two had seen no path but to fight to the death when they found that they had a hard disagreement, Claude would look at someone like Lorenz not as an other that there could be no fellowship with or as an antiquated obstacle to be crushed, but as precisely the sort of person he wanted to convince – and just this once, it seemed he had succeeded, for Lorenz stuck with Claude, officially to keep an eye on him, but quite lucky because he was less narrow-minded than his father and saw how Claude's plans could benefit the Alliance.

Claude haf said that above all, his goal is to give people the freedom to think for themselves where beliefs and cultures can freely coexist, that is, to broaden people's horizons and perspectives, to enlighten time so that they may think freely… he had done that for you, and now, he's resolved to do it for the whole world.

You're not sure that it can be done – not completely, not in your lifetimes – but every step closer to that vision of his is a step away from an irrational world drenched in a sea of blood.

He used to be your student, but now he's the one telling you to have more faith in yourself and your position. You always saw it as only another task that had been placed on you, something to do for others. You must guide the church; You must cleanse the wicked ones in the name of Sothis, your mission, your destiny, our duty… something given to you by someone else.

But Claude wouldn't hear such talk from Marianne and he wouldn't hear it from you – he can't afford to, or he'd have to swallow the 'destiny' of being doomed to be an outsider who belongs nowhere. He believes that people can free themselves of such conceptions, that one's 'fate' is not up to the random chance of one's circumstances.

After you had spoken, you would look at yourself in the mirror, with your ornaments and ceremonial robes marking you as the 'Enlightened Ones', and tell yourself: 'This person… me... is the leader of the resistance army'.

You didn't feel that when you were the arch-bishop, or even god-monarch of all this land, you didn't really feel it – and you don't think Rhea ever did, either. Behind that maternal facade of hers she was always some lost, frightened girl left in charge of the house, trying to maintain its homeostasis until Mama comes home, ripping the stuffing out her dolls in frustration to busy hiding from the shadows and the sounds of the wind to realize that she's in charge and personally responsible for everything that happens.

Being the product of her desperation and the object of her hope, you've tried your best to be responsible from the first, but you were no more free than she was, never as free in body, heart and mind than you are now as a technical puppet ruler with Claude as the man pulling the string behind you. As it would turn out, he and you are almost perfectly matched: He's the planner, and you're the enforcer. He comes up with his schemes, and you carry them out – better than anyone else he could wish for, he says. But without him, you wouldn't have direction.

You hardly thought about yourself or your origins before he came into your life and started asking questions.

Still, what a paradox – he flat out apologizes for brazenly using you, but at least he does _that,_ and he's the first person to actually sympathize with you over how you've ended up as the leader of a religion you don't even believe in – un-blinded by the upbringing that would make him see it as the highest, holiest honor, he's one of the few ones that could.

(You miss Dorothea all the more)

But if this world was sane, it should have been obvious. You're older than you look, so having you stuffed in these holy garments should look even more ridiculous than it truly is.

Even having ascended to the highest rank once before, you don't feel it in your bones yet but you begin to consider that being Rhea's designated successor isn't just a list of things you _have_ to do – to follow what others want from you, like you always did – but a list of opportunities, things that you _can_ do.

Not even just because of Rhea, or because of Sothis, but because of _you_. You once heard Claude ominously musing that many among your number might follow you, and you specifically, even if it weren't for Rhea, or if you were to outright turn against her. And he's certainly saying that because it's very convenient for plans of his own. You're not so dumb that you don't notice that you're being set up as a figurehead, a bargaining chip for Claude to both take control of the church and avoid displeasing the Alliance lords by marching under the Alliance banner and thus challenging the empire.

You flinch a bit when you see the flag that's hoisted instead – it's just like the one that Seteth made, and on it is the Crest of Flames… the Crest of Sothis, really, and her symbol, though none would take her name in vain. Back then you were fighting beneath it as her avatar – now, you're paradoxically working to get rid of the importance of crests and religion why making use of the social and cultural pull that the use of those symbols provided. You can certainly imagine how the citizens of Adrestia might not see it that way, or think you hypocrites.

You might look a blank slate, a puppet, while Claude is the man behind you, the dark vizier with his own agenda. Yet strangely you feel more in control of your on life than when you were set to rule this land in your own name as its messiah. Rather than having your fate dictated by your origins, you are _using_ them, like Claude is using the mixed blood that ties him to two influential houses. You're finding that being left to mind the church means that _you're _in charge of it, that you can change it and mold it as you think it right.

Strange that you would feel stronger and freer through becoming someone's subordinate.

When you have the audacity to bring it up to him, Claude laughs fondly. "It's not strange at all – Actually, I think it's much more natural than the opposite would be. Great things can happen when people understand each other and work together instead of getting hung up on their differences."

He's believed this a long time, but he smiles like he didn't really feel it in his heart before today.

...

You do feel a little sorry for the knights though, when you see Hilda and Claude both ramping up their charm to try and rope them into backing you.

Hilda has clearly become something of an A-list schemer in her own right, and the pair of them work together as a straight-up frightening dream team.

It appears she has become something much like Claude's most trusted right hand woman – it makes a whole lot of sense, apart from the obvious similarities in their gifts and priorities, he has the sort of local knowledge and observational gifts he's do well to get his hands on, and unlike him, she can actually play innocent in a halfway convincing manner.

The Knights of Seiros are not the only ones joining you.

Petra, Linhard and Ferdinand have fled much like the first time they joined forces with you. Exactly like that, in fact – a lot of the time, they say exactly the same things, like there was a cosmic switch somewhere that locked them into one path or the other. You wonder how many of your former students you could get to come with you in this manner.

Felix, Sylvain and Anette though… have not so much renounced their old allegiance as they have jumped off a sinking ship. You suppose that they, too are hoping that their self-interests will line up with Claude's. They showed up together, clinging to their friendship with little else left. They're a bit more pragmatic than their friends and family, and you've already seen how ready _they_ are to walk off a cliff for their doomed kingdom. They didn't want to ditch their old home – they simply saw no hope. Felix puts it like an obvious choice and deems everything else to be suicidal but his crass words doth protest a bit too much.

Sylvain has no illusions either, in that he thinks his father would definitely consider this a betrayal no matter how reasonable it seems. "Now I've gone and done it – I wonder how I'm going to die."

Part of you revolts when he muses whether it's his father or Dimitri will kill him first, but you must remember how Dimitri was before he found his way again… how he was when he scared a young Felix out of his wits. Sylvain's not even bitter or resentful and neither has he really renounced Dimitri – he's simply being realistic, or what registers as such to him.

You can't help the sinking feeling of disappointment, when the last you remember of Dimitri is this heartrendingly genuine person wanting so much to serve his subjects. You don't want to consider whether or not he'd be capable of killing one of his own childhood friends. You know he values them very much and that their leaving would tear at his soul, but anyone who's not directly opposing the empire, who refuses the pointless, hopeless fight against them, hop and down the cliff…

The way he used to see things in black and white, he might consider that the same as helping them or associating with them, like he sees Edelgard as associating with his father's murderers.

You don't have the heart to tell them that Dimitri is probably alive.

When you hear of some mysterious army marching on your position from the north, you're not the least bit surprised. You've talked it over with Claude and you're not too doubtful of his intentions as he once had the same intentions without your suggestion. You _want_ to work together – so you make sure that you've got the bridge of Myrrdin secured right on schedule so that you might meet him there in the expectation that Gilbert will meet you there again to request your assistant. But you're tied down with internal Alliance politics, and the effort is slow to get off the ground. Claude needs to manage the Gloucesters; Lorenz seems willing to help him and get him to reel in the rest of the lords to support him, but only if he gets the Empire off their backs. Thing don't exactly stall out, they simply proceed carefully, so you weren't too worried. You were actually hopeful, really – Claude's a good negotiator, Lorenz can't be facing you on the bridge I he's right beside you, and somewhere during the proceedings you manage to talk Ashe into defecting from Cornelia's forces – you think he'll fit the Golden Deer, being an archer from a common background and all that, and besides well used to using trickery to survive while keeping a noble heart. You can understand now why he'd surrender to the Alliance

For once you're actually optimistic. You dare think that you might actually have chosen the right person, the right one to make peace…

But Gilbert never shows up, nor is there any sight of any other kingdom soldiers.

Perhaps your apparent neutrality look like complicity to him, your obvious larger strategies and unclear intentions too untrustworthy; It not unlikely that _this_ Dimitri never got over his initial perception of you as someone that creeps him out.

Maybe it's a little bit of all these things, but _probably_ it's none of them and he didn't consider anything about you at all and simply charged ahead with no thought of strategy.

He crossed the river somewhere else, at greater loss to himself and the territories he's been blowing through: Tempest King indeed. That he turned out to be alive should have been happy news but you suspect that it's just a prelude to worse, and though they're probably attributing your foreknowledge to nothing more certain than an experiences warrior's well-honed instincts, you think everybody around you is starting to notice.

They remember the uncharacteristic outbursts from Dimitri's last month at the academy; Those who were formerly from Faerghus remember more. It might have been kinder if he'd never come back, never been found and given the reins of a country so that he might dash it against the wall of his personal vendetta. You'd never ever want him to be dead, but you wish so badly that he could just live somewhere quietly, perhaps together with Dedue.

You know he's going to his doom, and you're tempted to leave your encampment and disappear into the night to seek him, but even if you did that – and it would be all too irresponsible under the current circumstances – there would be no point. You managed that only just barely in a world where you had a year's time to win his trust.

...

Remember when you came to Gronder with Dimitri and fought Claude, while he argued that there was not reason for you to quarrel and that you should just let him go?

You're having a bit of a deja vu.

At last, you stand above that same killing field from a whole other vantage point, facing what Claude terms the worst class reunion in history.

The Kingdom warriors and the Imperial soldiers are butchering each other all across this strip of land, and you're about to descend on them like opportunistic vultures, looking to take advantage of the carnage.

You're seriously having to remind yourself: You're doing this to make a better world. You're doing this for Fodlan's new dawn…

The possibility of encountering Edelgard was, of course, accounted for. Claude is the sort of man who accounts for all that needs accounting, and Edelgard needs being accounted for if anyone ever did. On your own, without a plan, even you couldn't take her – yet you are the one who comes just about the closest to being able to take her, so any strategy to deal with her must perforce include yourself. Cruel fate, for both of you.

Still, you can only agree with Claude's assessment: If she were not tied down by powerful fighters, she should surely mow her way through your soldiers like a knife through butter, and you can't deny that, given that she did exactly that to the army of Faerghus the last time around.

Claude is not especially keen on her head or Dimitri's, but he makes no motion to hide that the lives of his followers are his fist priority. He might prefer talk, but unlike Dimitri, he wouldn't turn his back on a possible foe to archive that; He might be an idealist in his goals, but he's a pragmatist in his methods.

He told you once – you and Dimitri – that if your roles were reversed, he would most certainly not gamble his own life on coming to Dimitri's aid the way that Dimitri himself once did, and he wasn't kidding. He has his own dream to look out for, after all.

Dimitri is on his own. Any Alliance soldiers that show no interest in cooperating will be treated as hostiles – Claude will shoot first rather than be the first to get shot at; Dimitri and Edelgard are on their own. Claude doesn't strictly want them dead, but if they don't look out for their own survival, Claude won't hold himself responsible for what happens.

Once you wondered how the Kingdom and Alliance fought at all – it seemed contrived, tragic, wholly unnecessary. Now, you deem it almost inevitable. A consequence of who it's leaders are.

If Dimitri were in a different mindset, he would reach out his hands and Claude would gladly take it, but as he is now, he can only barge through until the leader of the Alliance responds in self-defense. Dimitri as he is now cannot ever accept a world with her in it, and Claude can't accept anything steamrolled upon him by force or being swept under the rug before he can stick his nose in it, precisely because he is so intent of enabling people to think for themselves.

Perhaps he is even counting on both enemy armies spending each other, even if would rather have the Kingdom as allies…

But unlike them, he knows to focus on the real threat, which is the empire with its larger army, and the formidable engine of destruction at it's head.

You're not the only one who's been committed to the task of keeping the emperor at bay: He's sending both you and Lysithea, easily his two strongest warriors. Felix has volunteered for another ugly task. Hilda has been termed the 'secret weapon', for all that this embarrasses her – She is somehow intended to distract the other commanders who were last used to great effect against their foes – Petra and Hubert, you'd presume.

Claude was tactful when he explained this, but also resolute and clear. "I'm sorry to ask this of you – I know both of you were close with her at the academy. But is _has_ to be you two."

And Lysithea is quick to assure him that she understands – she probably would have protested if she thought he was doubting her resolve, though her shaking fist betrays some feelings being forced down.

In the end Claude wouldn't have asked either of you if he wasn't sure that you could do it. He's simply being considerate, and he's also very right:

After all, the enemy you're discussing is Edelgard.

You've seen her dodge attacks by jumping on the tips of her toes with her other leg raised straight into the air in a long line; She's shrugged off what should have been devastating magical attacks, torn up the ground with a single strike, and she's been known to throw her shield into the air to grip her axe for a two-handed strike, pelt the ground with craters before catching that heavy thing nearly without effort…

She is a goddess of war and a demon of power:

Behold the behemoth, queen over all those who are proud.

So it comes to pass that you cross paths again on the battlefield – must you truly be damned to fight each other to the death over and over again, you of all people, who ought to be kindred spirits?

Yourself and Lysithea share a glance, resolved but exhausted.

But all this time you've been telling yourself that is is _her_ who is making you all do this.

...yet she looks as dismayed as you.

"...Lysithea! How unfortunate that a talented woman like you should throw her life away on a pointless battle!"

You hear very real regret there.

Agressively fighting down whatever she herself must be feeling, the young mage is all the more clear with her intentions: "Do not underestimate me. The fight is far from over, Edelgard!"

Yet she always did have the sense that the one-time imperial princess really did respect her for her talents despite her occasional annoying fretting. She had looked out for her almost like an older sister would, and now they would probably fight to the death….

Only few people could have kept a calm demeanor or even a sense of levity under these circumstances, but Claude would be one of them. You've grown to suspect that he uses the upbeat banter to distance himself from the action.

"We haven't seen each other since Garreg Mach!" he says, as a casually as if this really were just an ordinary class reunion. "You've grown lovelier than ever, Edelgard."

Dimitri would have charged him with his lance by now, but Edelgard is herself hard-boiled enough to just calmly respond in kind:

"You're not so unfortunate yourself. And you have the aid of the professor. Frankly, I'm jealous!"

But then she drops all pretense and looks straight at the three of you:

"_Just go!_ **Now'**s the chance for you and the professor to leave."

You're not her enemy, in other words. The Kingdom army is. She would have let you go without batting an eyelash.

But Claude is no more interested in backing down than Dimitri was back when Claude was the one trying to join up with him: "I'm afraid I must decline. Even if we left, we'd just have to come right back."

He _might_ have turned back in another life, but not now, when he feels that his impossible dream might actually be within his grasp – and he is sure as hell not turning his back on her.

She doesn't ask a second time.

You're doing this for the future of Fodlan -

You're doing this to beat back military rule and replace it with freedom and free thought….

It won't be in vain.

In the end you owe your survival mostly to Lysithea.

At some point during the mayhem your eyes flicker over to Claude to exchange a worried glance just to find that he thought of it first.

Her hands blaze with magic; you didn't think she could produce such a frantic war cry from her slender little body. Once or twice you're tempted to pull her back, except you can't afford to against an opponent like Edelgard, and you're not sure she would have listened even if you told her.

She's desperate, like a person with nothing left to lose en route to meet their fate.

The Emperor is tough as stringy leather, but Claude had a special, tailor-made strategy cooked up for the sole purpose of defeating her, and Lysithea is not just any mage. What seems to drive her today appears to go further than even her typical need to prove herself -

Even once the enemy commander retreats through your concerted efforts, she refuses to fall back, and keeps throwing herself around the battlefield even after she was forced to lean on her staff to catch her breath: "I can do more! I can still be useful! Let me fight!"

You make a mental note to keep an eye on her – people who are fit for battle do not typically need to beg for it. But you can't think about it now.

Edelgard's not the sort of opponent that you can be fighting and also _think._

You can only hope that your efforts will be keeping Claude's hands and brains free for the thinking; you also make it your task to look out for Lysithea – You'll have to talk to her sometime later when everything is less urgent.

That's all the tasks you can handle at this moment while also staying alive.

The shadows lengthen, the hours go, and the battle proceeds, somehow.

Are you holding her off, or is she holding off you?

Either way neither of you gets very much of a go at the others' underlings.

Claude's precision strike could not have been more different from Dimitri's blind charge. A

ll in all, you contain Her Majesty much more efficiently than the much larger kingdom army did. What became of it without your guidance, you can't say – the need to react fast at any moment makes every moment feel longer, but you don't think you've seen a single blue uniform in a good while.

Somehow, the smaller Alliance force has come out on top without the Empire's numbers or the kingdom's many elite warriors. Edelgard might be formidable, but she alone can't fight the whole army, and Claude's sharp wit is easily worth legions.

At the very least you have a stalemate that you both have to flee from, but the Imperial forces are on their home territory and any sort of retreat means that they'll be vacating a chunk of their heartland.

It is a very exhausted, teeth-gritting Emperor that at least calls the retreat. You can tell because her movements are actually beginning to resemble those of a typical human person in heavy plate armor. Judging by her grimace, Lysithea sure did some damage.

But both of you know that you would pay a high price for pressing on further now, and so does Claude, so neither army makes an attempt to overtake the other in pursuit, each expecting that the other will take a rout over mutually assured destruction.

There is no repeat of the total massacre that was your first timeline, but neither is there any word of Arundel taking over: For now, it seems that the Emperor has remained quite solid on her throne.

...

You knew not to pursue; Dimitri didn't.

The Kingdom army, it turns out, has been completely dispersed. Whoever didn't run in dead; There might be refugees, but there will be no organized train marching back to Fraldarius territory.

Without even the sparse aid that the church once provided them in letting them cross the bridge of Myrrdin, they were completely defeated without even a figurative accomplishment to speak of.

They had, quite simply, thrown their lives away.

And Dimitri….

The day before, Felix had declared quite confidence that he would separate the Tempest King's head from his shoulders if they were by any chance still attached.

But the King did not die by Felix' sword. They certainly fought, so much is clear, but both men still lived when the former came away from the altercation. Some way or another, Felix did not seem to have struck the death blow. Surely one born with the crest of Blaiddyd would not die so easily, but it seems inconceivable that Felix would not have known this.

There would be no point in discussing this, however, because the King certainly did die one way or another.

He still lived when Felix left him (one might almost be tempted to say, 'Felix left him alive') but that lasted only so long as it to Hilda to jump out from the bushes, wide-eyed and still visibly shaken in that underlying compassionate nature of hers that had never lain quite so open, because, especially now after these years, you would have taken her for someone who knows about the world, who is not all naive or anything, and she was white as a sheet as she described what she had seen.

If you'd ever wondered what would have become of him or his army if you had not stopped him the night after Rodrigue's death, you do know now.

He told you once that if wasn't for you, he would have gone on to challenge hordes of foes with no regard for his life or the lives of his allies and died a miserable death, but that does not even begin to describe it.

You hear that the tired, terrified imperial soldiers skewered him from all sides with their spears like some wild, rabid thing on the hunt, the whole pack of them piling onto him – did they think he could fly? Did they not think he would bleed out from having all his insides pierced?

He must have struck the primal fear into them for them to respond with that sort of extreme prejudice. He must have howled – You never saw it, but you could picture it right before you, how he must have been reaching out for the receding red fleck of Edelgard's cape until his arm congealed in rigor mortis.

None had heard anything of Dedue, but Gilbert was last seen carrying the late King's mangled body off the battlefield, heartbroken and tenderly enough to make one think it was his own son -

One might almost forget that he had an actual daughter who knew better than to expect his return.

Felix was a stiff, leading marble as she cried into his arms, having attached herself to his person without waiting for his invitation. He mumbled something about avenging Dimitri upon the empire so that he might rest in peace or being unable to face him otherwise; you're rather ungently reminded that he, too, was raised by Rodrigue.

He might have rejected the ways of his homeland, he might even have rejected them, but he had still grown up suffused in its myths and values – he had wanted so badly to be free, but he never knew how to do it; Rejecting everything in sight was but a child's idea of counterdepent rebellion. When he asked to go with you he professed loudly that this was what he wanted, but now you suspect that he might not have been honest with himself on the subject of his former friend.

Sylvain's cynicism turned out to be somewhat more robust. You find him deadened but not surprised. "Yes, it's horrible, but when you really think about it, there's no way that you could have expected anything else to happen."

You ask why he says that.

He has no illusions about it:

"It's because of Dimitri. He really, really hated the Empire, ever since he started to think that they might have been involved in the tragedy of Duscur. Apparently there was some dignitary from the Empire who left Fhirdiad right before it happened… Even back at the academy, he never really had much to do with anyone from the Empire."

This refuses to feel right to you at first – even as a young man, you remember Dimitri as someone who was all about different peoples accepting each other, but he also spoke to you about the unacceptable within himself. He had a rather dim view of mankind, little more than sinners in the hands of an angry, uncaring goddess. You can't say that it would be entirely uncalled for him to think that way after witnessing such barbarity. He was exactly right in suspecting Arundel, and since he ended up as the regent after the unrest following the insurrection concluded, it would not be incorrect to regard him as representative of the imperial government. Still you can't forget that the imperial students of Garreg Mach included the likes of Linhardt and Bernadetta at the time, neither of whom could have hurt a fly back then.

But thinking back, you had certainly seen Dimitri talking with Marianne or Raphael sometimes, but you can't ever recall any situation where you really saw him hang out with any of the imperial students outside of stiff formalities. You wondered sometimes how odd it seemed that Bernadetta and Dedue didn't seem to know each other given that they had pretty much exactly the same hobbies, but you'd chalked it up to her probably being too scared of the vassal's imposing stature to approach him. Now you think that he may have followed his lord's example in this. Still, Dimitri was just keeping his distance, right? He was trying not to give in to those feelings, to be better than them - you don't want to say that that counts for nothing.

It did seem odd that Dimitri jumped immediately from finding out about Edelgard's secret identity to concluding that she must have been directly involved in a crime that took place when she couldn't have been older than twelve, but now you suspect that he'd not so much jumped to conclusions as he had seen that reveal as confirmation for long-held suspicions.

He must have held so much restrained rage tucked away beneath the surface, all the time he was acting normal towards his classmates, Edelgard and even Arundel, who was most definitely one of the real murderers. So much patience… no wonder he ran out of it.

There was no reason to doubt Sylvain – he'd known Dimitri since childhood.

In all this discussion about Dimitri, he never once mentioned that he had personally slain Ingrid that day – only much later would he take place what had transpired that day.

("I'm sorry Ingrid! But I believe more in what the professor is trying to do here than I do in my own country!"

"There comes a time when we must all chose what we're going to do. And I chose to die in service of my lord!")

When you'll ask him why he didn't talk to you right away, he'd say he had no reason to complain since he was not the one being dead. That seems to be one of those cruel convictions that life had impressed upon him: That he never had any right to complain since others had it worse.

But Dimitri's old childhood friends are not the only ones who have something to say about his death.

Marianne reflects on all the times she saw him praying, wondering whatever it was that he used to pray for. You think she might have a suspicion.

And then there's Ferdinand. He's incensed, but not how you would think. He's just about thoroughly disgusted with Dimitri – most of the sadness and anger he feels are for the people who followed him to their doom. A king, he says, should have the greater good in mind, not get swept up in his emotions. You generally think of Ferdinand as a fairly emotional person himself, very sanguine in temperament, but it is true that he might have chided Caspar on this at some point.

No matter his natural disposition, he certainly _values_ responsibility and control. In that sense, he's maybe not so different from Edelgard and Hubert – in another world, maybe they could have worked together quite efficiently. But once you start thinking about other worlds, you can't help but wish that Ferdinand knew Dimitri as _you_ once knew him, as he truly would want to be if he were freed from the shackles of his exaggerated sense of guilt, obligation and black-and-white thinking.

Ferdinand could only shake his head at the Tempest King, but if it was the Savior King instead… you could see him getting on that bandwagon much like Lorenz had done. The combination of preserving the _spirit_ rather than the exact letter of traditions with an emphasis on serving the people would probably have had its appeal to the displaced Adrestian noble.

"King Dimitri, " he reasoned, "was abysmally failed by each and every of his councilors and advisors! How come not a single one of them stood up to him to keep him from such a ruinous past?"

How come? Simple. That would be because you weren't there with him.

...

At least you kept Raphael from being slain this time. By now you don't doubt that Claude most certainly _would_ have kept his promise to take care of Maya and must have taken her with him when he fled the country -

that was before you really knew much about her, that she's an artist, that you ought to have been imagining her not as your go-to cheerful little girl but a distinctive personality much like Lysithea…

You'd never gone thrift-shopping with Raphael and Leonie to see if you could find gifts for her, or helped Hilda with procuring some handmade ones.

You're going to have and visit her after the war ends, when you've brought her brother back home to her in one piece.

…

"Well it was supposed to be Saint Seiros," says Ignatz, somewhat sheepishly.

So far that's not surprising – you know he likes to paint these religious motifs (You've never quite had the heart to disabuse him of his notions of Sothis' great beauty), nor is it too surprising that he'd hide or downplay his work for all that he's grown more confident as of late, but in this particular case, shyness is not why this particular painting ended up on the scrap heap.

"She's known mostly for the motherly way of protecting her followers, but Ingrid thought-"

He pauses a bit at the thought of her – She would most certainly have died at Gronder, following her old childhood friend all the way down to his doom.

"She thought I should try to bring out the aspect of her that is also a warrior. She did defeat the King of Liberation with her own hands, after all… but it didn't really come out right. She looks more like a maniacal demigod than anything…"

This is where his words veer off from the drawing; He gets into pensive musing about how the empire that was once founded by Saint Seiros herself has now turned against her creed so that you are now fighting warriors with the blood of the saints, and an enemy who might be a descendant of the goddess herself, but you lose track of his line of argument, knowing that so much of it is based on false stories.

Your gaze remains transfixed on the painting.

You don't know it yet, but there will come a time when you will conclude that Ignatz had captured the true essence of Seiros right then and there.

For now it pulls at something you've never allowed yourself to express, because you've been reasonable, because you've always gone and tried to be the bigger person even as you were dolled up and presented ripe on the altar.

"You made her look a little bit like Lady Rhea."

"Oh. That's because… uh… I guess it should be alright to tell you, since it's you professor."

What you learn then might have made a more expressive person laugh out loud.

Whilst Claude, Linhardt and Edelgard were all going around scouring the Library for secrets, Ignatz had only needed to ask for Flayn to crack and spill the whole tale to him, the true tale, as you've heard it once from Seteth. You don't think Flayn outright revealed that she was talking about herself, but enough transpired for Ignatz to start picturing the Saints a whole lot like certain church staff who are after all claiming to be relatives.

All Ignatz needed to do was ask nicely… but it makes sense. He's not exactly a particularly threatening fellow – Flayn has no reason to keep anything from him because she has nothing to fear from him. She and Seteth have most certainly told you all they know.

But not Rhea. Claude is right: She keeps too many secrets. Whatever made you think she had told you all?

You think that hot, pounding tension in your temples might be the feeling known as 'resentment'.

You're really not sure what you'll do if you ever see her again.

But you know what? Claude is no longer the only one who would love himself some answers.

You ask to keep the painting, maniacal demigod and all.

Sometimes you look at it to remind yourself.

Next time Claude stops by for tea, he comments in such a way as to suggest that he's onto Seteth and his daughter as well. By now you think that you can trust him enough that there's no need to throw him off their trail. You know he would never target anyone for having different origins – you're not sure that you could say that about Edelgard.

Even if you assume that the bandits were never meant to actually kill Dimitri and Claude, and that killing your father was a spontaneous decision of Kronya's, there's no question that the Death Knight was Edelgard's direct subordinate, not Solon's.

As usual, you can leave it to Claude to ask just the right questions – "weren't there two more saints, though?"

...

You find the answer to that before too long. Claude was hellbent on getting it, and he knows well to get what he wants.

Still, you wouldn't think that you would stumble on one of them while basically trying to get a discount weapon for Leonie. At least, it has stopped her from being jealous over your sword.

Claude was very pleased with you that day; He commends you for realizing that it would be a good idea to nap Linhardt. Still you do feel a little bit guilty – he suggested that you send Seteth and Flayn directly against the beasts to see how they would react. Granted, if he was right, they would not have very much to fear (sure enough Flayn's biggest concern seemed to be to make sure that her 'uncles' wouldn't unwittingly blow her cover), and Claude expected that they might perhaps be won over to the cause – but no such luck.

The Immovable One doesn't have the strength left to be of much help; and the ones they call the Windcaller wants not nothing to do with you – by association, because you bring people with you that carry 'the stink of those detestable Ten Elites…'

But weren't they heroes that helped Seiros bring down Nemesis?

Why would one of the Saints be disgusted with Claude for the 'crime' of being a very distant descendant of him?

And you. The Windcaller said you had 'the Stench of Sothis' about you. Why he would draw a connection between her and you, you can imagine. You could even understand if he sort of started treating you like her the way Rhea did. But why would he disdain you for it? Wouldn't Sothis be his mother like she's Rhea's and Seteth's? You could at least faintly understand his distrust if he sensed your crest, thought you were a descendant of King Nemesis and figured that you might be as untrustworthy as your ancestor, but then why would he say that you smell of Sothis?

…

It used to be that Marianne was your problem child. You were having to make sure that she got enough sleep, took care of herself and left her room once in a while. Things improved somewhat once she made friends with Hilda, and then she returned to you with her skin cleared and her hair tied and her hair correctly tied – it sure can't have hurt when you roughed up that wannabe 'scholar' who had been bothering her. Lately, you've seen more of that quiet wisdom and insight shining through which she always used to have; she'd found the confidence to tell you just how troubled she had really been back then, which in itself signified a lot – before, she would have kept quiet out of some fear that she might have been bothering others.

But if you thought you had to worry about the health and well-being anyone in your current class, you would have thought it would be. Or maybe Ignatz – or even Lorenz. He was more sensitive than he let on and you'd agree with Hilda that he probably should be eating more.

But here's who you wouldn't have worried about: Lysithea. She was always one of your best, most hardworking students. Sure, she could be a little abrasive at times, but apart from certain touchy subjects she was mature enough, if not wholly over that phase where just about every young person would become embarrassed of their less cool-sounding interests.

Sure, you always got the impression that she was somewhat unfit, but that wouldn't be too unusual for a noble lady of the alliance, who, judging by Hilda and Lorenz, would not typically have been accustomed to manual labor. Besides, she was ultimately a mage. She didn't _need_ to lift anything heavier than a wand.

But ever since you were reunited after your involuntary vacation at the bottom of that blasted ravine, you get the impression that she's even more high-strung and impatient than before, if such a thing is possible. When you heard that she yelled at Lorenz for wanting to discuss politics, you didn't think _too _much of it. You'd think she would be glad to be consulted on such a 'serious' topic, but Lorenz _did_ have a certain tendency to, let's say, overestimate his own charm. But then she started getting into arguments with Marianne and Ignatz of all people! That might almost be considered an achievement.

You figured that she must be under pressure because her family was under pressure from their land's proximity to the Empire, but even as the Alliance's political situation improved and the success of your campaign progressed, her mood seemed to get worse if anything. In the war councils, she was often on the side of quick, drastic actions, and her tendency to overwork herself had certainly gotten worse – and trying to nudge her towards taking breaks only seemed to exacerbate the problem.

Before long both Rafael and Hilda independently showed up at your doorstep to bring up the issue.

Lorenz, bless his heart, got a basket full of miscellaneous health remedies showed back into his arms.

This has been noted on your radar for a while, as something to watch out for and make an effort to counteract until the day you came to look for her in the library to discuss the latest intel with her (a productive habit you had picked up from Claude).

You didn't find her with the books. Instead she was curled up on her side, on one of the easy chairs intended for reading, her latest book put down on a table besides her. She was not so exhausted or incapacitated that she couldn't chase you out of the room when you asked if she needed help, but she looked pained enough for you to suspect that something more serious might be the matter – but whatever it was, so far she seemed hellbent on hiding it.

You would find out soon enough.


End file.
